^^•. 


TMt  <HVRg.tr   iP-LAveK. 


RAMBLES    IN    IRELAND 


AN    OLD    SLAVE. 
Drairn  and  coloured  by  yac\^  'B,  Teats. 


RAMBLES    IN 
IRELAND 


ROBERT    LYND 


A 


author  of 
'home  life  in  Ireland"  "irish  and  English" 


WITH   FIVE   ILLUSTRATIONS   IN   COLOUR 

BY  JACK   B.    YEATS 
AND  TWENTY-FIVE   FROM   PHOTOGRAPHS 


BOST0N  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL  MASS. 


BOSTON 
DANA   ESTES   &   COMPANY 


Published  igj2 


Copyright  in  the  British  Empire  of  Mills  &  Boon  Ltd. ,  London,  iqi2 
Printed  by  Morrison  &   Gibb  Ltd.,  Edinburgh 


TO 
ANNIE    LYND 


PREFATORY   NOTE 


I  HAVE  to  thank  Mr.  J.  B.  Atkins  as  author,  and 
Mr.  John  Murray  as  publisher,  for  permission  to 
quote  the  ghost  story,  near  the  beginning  of 
Chapter  IV.,  from  the  admirable  "  Life  of  Sir 
William  Howard  Russell."  I  am  exceedingly 
grateful,  too,  to  Mr.  Jack  B.  Yeats  for  per- 
mission to  make  use  of  some  of  his  illustrations 
of  "  Life  in  the  West  of  Ireland,"  and  to  Mr. 
Paul  Henry  for  allowing  me  to  reproduce  his 

"  Old  Age  Pensioner." 

R.  L. 
August  1 912. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 
Galway  of  the  Races    .  .  .  .  -13 

CHAPTER   n 
The  Path  to  Cong  .  .  .  .  .61 

CHAPTER   III 
Through  Lisdoonvarna  .  .  .  .  .95 

CHAPTER   IV 
The  Cliffs  of  Moher  to  Killarney  .  .115 

CHAPTER  V 
Puck  Fair  .  .  .  .  .  .  .146 

CHAPTER  VI 
Tourists  in  Kerry         .  .  .  .  .    168 

CHAPTER  VII 

KiNSALE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .182 

CHAPTER  VIII 
Cork  and  Mallow  .  .  .  .  .213 

CHAPTER   IX 
Cashel  of  the  Kings      .....    238 

CHAPTER  X 
The  Man  from  Thurles  ....    256 

CHAPTER  XI 
Dublin        .......    264 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


IN  COLOUR 


The  Hurley  Player 

Cover  of  Book 

An  Old  Slave 

Frontispiece 

FACING  PACE 

The  Treason  Song 

.       44 

The  Sportsmen     . 

.      54 

The  Ballad  Singer 

.     162 

IN   HALF-TONE 
(Photographs  by  Lawrence,  Dublin) 

Lynch's  House,  Galway. 

Cong. 

Cong  Abbey 

The    Old   Age    Pensioner.    (Fi 
Paul  Henry) 

On  the  Coast  of  Clare 

The  Cliffs  of  Moher    . 

Scatter Y  Island  . 

The  Treaty  Stone,  Limerick 

King  John's  Castle,  Limerick 


rom  the  Painting  by 


21 

77 
86 

102 
112 
119 
127 
136 
139 


12         LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Puck  Fair  .... 

Valentia  Harbour,  Co.  Kerry 

O'CoNNELL's  Birthplace,  Cahirciveen 

Hotel  Grounds  in  Glengariff 

Glengariff,  Co.  Cork    . 

A  View  of  Kinsale 

St.  Patrick's  Bridge,  Cork 

Shandon  Steeple,  Cork 

The  Mardyke,  Cork 

Mallow 

The  Rock  of  Cashel 

CoRMAC's  Chapel,  Cashel 

Kilkenny    . 

Kilkenny  Cathedral 

Old  Parliament  House,  Dublin 

O'Connell  Street,  Dublin 


FACING    PAGE 

164 
169 

175 
179 
188 
212 
216 
218 
225 
238 
246 
256 
261 
266 
292 


RAMBLES    IN    IRELAND 


CHAPTER  I 

GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES 

Galway  is  a  grey  city  set  among  abounding 
waters.  It  gives  the  impression,  at  any  rate,  of 
a  stony  permanence  that  refuses  to  be  destroyed 
though  the  tides  of  sea  and  river  swirl  about  it 
and,  as  you  cross  the  outer  bridge,  seem  to  be 
rushing  through  its  foundations  and  gushing  out 
of  its  walls.  Historians  of  the  old-fashioned 
sort  tell  you  that  Galway  is  not  an  Irish  city.  It 
is  true  enough  that  it  first  appears  in  the  records 
after  the  Normans  had  come  to  it  with  their 
energetic  genius  for  towns  and  systems.  But 
nothing  remains  of  the  Normans  now  save  dust 
and  stones.  It  was  in  vain  that  they  wrote  up  on 
the  western  gate  of  this  medieval  fortress  of  theirs 
the  fantastic  prayer  :  "  From  the  fury  of  the 
O'Flaherties,    good    Lord,    deliver    us."     The 


14  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

O' Flaherties,  or  what  the  O' Flaherties  stand  for, 
are  its  supreme  distinction  now. 

I  do  not  mean  that  the  Irish  have  made  Galway 
a  positive  expression  of  their  genius,  an  imaginative 
and  symbolic  city.  Fortune  has  seen  to  it  that 
that  was  impossible.  But  I  do  mean  to  say  that 
amid  the  solid  ruins  of  this  city,  amid  this  scene 
of  abandoned  greatness,  the  Irish  have  found  their 
most  interesting  encampment  on  a  large  scale. 
Galway  is  Irish  in  a  sense  in  which  Dublin  and 
Belfast  and  Cork  and  Derry  are  not  Irish  but 
cosmopolitan.  Its  people,  their  speech,  their 
dress,  their  swarthy  complexions,  their  black  hair, 
their  eyes  like  blue  flames,  excite  the  imagination 
with  curious  surmises.  Galway  city — technically, 
it  is  only  Galway  town — is  to  the  discoverer  of 
Ireland  something  like  what  Chapman's  Homer 
was  to  Keats.  It  is  a  clue,  a  provocation,  an 
enticement. 

Not  that  it  has  preserved  itself  inviolate  from 
respectability  and  shoddy  and  the  invasions  of 
twentieth-century  commonplaceness.  There  are 
plenty  of  dull  shops  in  it,  besides  the  older  houses 
with  the  towering  grey  walls,  severe  in  their 
ruins.  The  main  street  through  which  the  creep- 
ing tram  winds  is,  in  spite  of  an  occasional  piece 
of  surviving  majesty,  unimpressive  enough.  And 
I  am  sure  that  besides  dull  shops  and  dull  streets 
Galway  has  its  share  of  dull  people.  One  hears  a 
good  deal  of  the  petty  social  snobbishness  that 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  15 

divides  the  genteeler  part  of  the  inhabitants  into 
rival  clubs  in  which,  as  a  local  man  put  it  to 
me,  "  twopence  looks  down  on  three-halfpence," 
after  the  manner  of  the  civilised. 

Many  travellers,  I  am  afraid,  are  disappointed 
in  Galway  when  they  arrive  and  find  it  so  full  of 
houses  one  might  see  anywhere  and  people  one 
might  see  anywhere.  It  does  not  meet  one  with 
the  open -bosomed  generosity  that  one  had 
learned  to  expect  from  descriptions  of  it  as  an 
historic  Spanish  city  with  streets  of  courtly 
marble  houses.  It  is  a  "  wild,  fierce,  and  most 
original  town,"  said  Thackeray  ;  but,  when  you 
visit  it,  you  find  that  it  is  wild,  fierce,  and  original 
only  in  pieces,  and  those  not  the  most  immediately 
obvious  pieces,  and  you  have  at  first  a  feeling 
of  disenchantment.  You  look  round  you  again, 
eager  to  see  those  wonderful-looking  people  of 
whom  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall  wrote  :  "  The 
dark  features  and  coal-black  hair  of  the  people 
indicate  their  Spanish  descent ;  and  they  are, 
for  the  most  part,  so  finely  formed,  so  naturally 
graceful,  that  almost  every  peasant  girl  might 
serve  as  a  model  for  a  sculptor."  Ah,  well ;  you 
turn  your  eyes  to  the  wrinkled  old  woman  who 
sits  huddled  in  her  shawl  on  the  pavement  by  her 
basket  of  dulse  and  halfpenny  oranges,  and  you 
see  that  she  has  very  little  hair  of  any  sort  at  all, 
and  that  her  figure  is  as  graceful  as  the  gnarled 
body  of  a  tree.     And  the  next  woman  you  meet 


i6  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

is  a  barefoot  pedlar  who  tries  to  sell  you  cockles 
or,  in  default  of  that,  to  joke  a  beggar's  penny  out 
of  you,  and  you  notice  that  the  skin  of  her  face 
is  inflamed,  that  she  breathes  spirits,  and  that 
her  teeth  are  yellow.  The  next  moment,  a  young 
woman  passes  you,  and  she  is  so  respectable  that 
her  clothes  seem  like  a  uniform  :  if  she  has  coal- 
black  hair,  there  is  no  beauty  in  it,  for  she  has 
made  herself  as  lifeless,  as  empty  of  glow,  as  a 
wooden  figure.  And  so,  though  pretty  women 
are  numerous  here  above  most  towns,  you  go 
from  depth  to  deeper  depth  of  disappointment. 
Such  is  the  penalty  of  living  in  an  age  of  realism. 
If  one  woman  in  a  thousand  is  beautiful,  if  one 
street  in  a  city  channels  some  tide  of  loveliness 
and  colour,  philosophers  learn  to  be  grateful  and 
to  say  that  the  world  is  good. 

When  last  I  arrived  in  Galway  it  was  the  day 
after  a  bank  holiday  and  the  day  before  the  races. 
Our  reception  at  the  railway  station  was  certainly 
such  as  was  likely  to  give  strangers  the  impression 
that  they  had  arrived  at  a  "  wild,  fierce,  and  most 
original  town."  It  was  one  of  those  scenes  of 
indiscipline  which  are  common  in  a  country  where 
the  people  are  not  allowed  to  make  law  and  order 
for  themselves,  and  therefore  seem  to  look  on 
law  and  order  as  a  foreign  and  superfluous  thing. 
We  got  out  of  the  train  into  a  crowd  where  men 
were  pushing  hither  and  thither  with  the  turmoil 
of  cattle  in  a  panic.     To  attempt  to  reach  the 


GAL  WAY  OF  THE  RACES  17 

luggage  where  it  had  been  pitched  on  to  the 
platform  was  like  thrusting  one's  way  into  a 
football  scrimmage.  Tall  wild  men — self-con- 
stituted porters — battled  over  to  it  with  sticks,  and 
English  visitors  shoved  towards  it  with  damnings 
and  indignant  faces.  One  of  the  tallest  and  wildest 
of  the  men  managed  to  tug  our  luggage  out  of  the 
middle  of  the  fight,  and,  calling  up  an  ally  to 
take  one  of  the  bags,  he  set  off  ahead  of  us  for 
the  hotel  where  we  intended  to  put  up. 

At  the  door  of  the  hotel  stood  a  stout  man  in  a 
cap,  a  sociable-looking  man  with  a  grey  moustache, 
obviously  the  landlord. 

"  Go  mbeannuighidh  Dia  dhuit,"  said  I,  as  he 
nodded  to  us ;  "  teastuigheann  seomra  uainn." 

"  Eh  ?  "  he  said,  bending  his  head  forward  and 
looking  uncomfortable ;  "  eh  ?  " 

"  Teastuigheann  seomra  uainn,"  I  repeated : 
"  nach  bhfuil  Gaedhilg  agat  ?  " 

His  eyes  shifted  nervously,  as  though  he  would 
have  liked  to  escape. 

"  I  don't  know  much  Irish,"  he  muttered  in  an 
absent-minded  way ;  and,  looking  down  the  hall, 
called,  "  Mary  !  The  fact  is,"  he  went  on,  "  I'm 
not  sure — I  never  like  to  turn  away  a  Gaelic 
Leaguer — it's  the  week  of  the  races,  do  you  see, 
and  we  have  to  charge  extra  for  the  rooms. 
Mary ! "  again ;  then  to  the  men  who  were 
carrying  our  bags,  "Put  those  down  a  minute. 
We'U   see  what  can  be  done,  Mr.  ."     He 


1 8  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

raised  his  voice  inquisitively  to  learn  my  name.  I 
told  him  ;  then  he  went  off  to  see  what  could  be 
done.  In  a  minute  or  two  he  came  back  and  told  us 
that  if  we  were  willing  to  pay  something  extra — I 
forget  how  much — we  might  send  our  bags  upstairs. 

The  hotel  had  not  yet  become  a  house  of  con- 
fusion. It  was  filling  rapidly,  however,  mostly 
with  muscular  young  men  in  caps,  who  went 
upstairs  into  the  dusty  air  of  the  dining-room 
and  waited  patiently,  reading  dusty  old  numbers 
of  illustrated  papers,  till  one  of  the  girls  in 
the  house  would  bring  in  an  overloaded  tray  of 
ham  and  eggs  and  fresh  bread  and  jam  and  tea. 
Our  luggage  was  taken  up  to  one  of  a  row  of 
box-bedrooms  arranged  along  a  passage — boxes 
divided  from  each  other  by  thin  wooden  parti- 
tions, and  with  doors  that  would  only  keep 
shut  if  you  put  a  chair  or  a  bag  up  against  them. 
The  bed  was  in  need  of  clean  sheets.  The  room 
gave  the  impression  that  a  minimum  of  labour 
and  of  thought  had  been  wasted  upon  its  bareness. 
Probably  it  would  not  be  in  use,  except  during 
the  time  of  the  races,  from  one  year's  end  to  the 
other.  From  the  festal  untidiness  of  bedroom 
and  eating  -  room  we  soon  escaped  into  the 
dusty  streets — the  dustiest  in  Ireland — with  their 
sprinkling  of  hands-in-pockets  expectant  idlers.  .  . . 

St.  Nicholas'  Church  seemed  the  best  place  of 
refuge  from  the  immediate  century.  Grey  and 
stumpy,  and  aspiring  to  no  beauty  save  that  of 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  19 

age,  crowned  with  a  belfry  capriciously  set  there 
like  the  final  ornament  on  a  child's  house  of 
bricks,  it  looked  like  a  little  Thibet  of  challenge 
to  the  explorer  approaching  its  ring  of  rubble  wall. 
From  inside  the  church  came  the  sound  of  a 
harmonium.  Not  a  sacred  or  even  a  sentimental 
sound,  but  the  sound  of  a  harmonium  being  used 
as  a  toy,  or  at  least  as  a  puzzle.  Two  little  girls  in 
wide-brimmed  hats  moved  a  yard  or  two  away 
from  the  instrument  self-consciously  when  we 
entered,  and  a  small  lively  man,  wrinkled  and 
merry-eyed  like  a  sailor,  ceased  lifting  mats  and 
dusting  pews  and  came  over  to  us.  Like  other 
people,  I  often  resent  the  insistent  friendliness 
of  sextons.  But  in  St.  Nicholas'  the  sexton  is 
a  boon.  Without  him  one  would  miss  a  good 
many  of  the  significances  of  the  place.  Not  that 
there  is  not  a  great  deal  of  public  and  accessible 
history  in  the  stones  of  the  building.  In  so  far 
as  it  is  the  mortuary  of  the  Tribes,  for  instance, 
he  who  runs  may  read.  Everybody  knows  how, 
soon  after  Galway  was  walled  in  about  1270,  it 
was  settled  in  by  a  number  of  exclusive  families 
and  came  to  be  called  after  them  the  City  of  the 
Tribes.  The  names  of  the  tribes,  Norman  and 
Welsh  and  Saxon  in  origin  for  the  most  part, 
are  immortalised  in  the  unmusical  and  un- 
imaginative rhyme — 

Athy,   Blake,  Bodkin,   Browne,  Deane,  Darcy,   Lynch, 
Joyce,   Kirwan,   Martin,  Morris,   Sherrett,   French. 


20  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Here  in  this  bare  old  church  is  a  house  of  monu- 
ments to  these  long-since  Irishised  families.  Them 
you  can  see  for  yourself,  even  without  the  presence 
of  the  sexton,  with  his  running  commentary  of 
"  the  antiquaries  say."  But,  rich  as  they  are,  these 
are  not  the  secret  treasures  of  the  church. 

Of  all  the  tombs  which  the  sexton  points  out 
to  the  stranger,  the  most  interesting  to  me  are 
the  flagged  graves  let  into  the  floor,  where  the 
dead  business-men  of  a  more  bustling  Galway  are 
buried  with  the  emblems  of  their  trade  or  of  the 
Resurrection — scissors  and  boots  and  crowing 
cocks — carved  on  the  stones.  For  most  of  these 
you  have  to  look  under  the  mats  where,  on  Sundays, 
the  feet  of  the  infrequent  worshippers  tread. 
Look  at  them  closely,  for  they  are  one  of  the 
vindications  of  Ireland.  Politicians  try  to  per- 
suade us  that  Belfast  is  the  only  part  of  Ireland 
where  industry  and  commerce  are  natural.  This 
is,  of  course,  not  true,  as  the  visitor  to  historic 
Galway  will  soon  discover.  The  enterprise,  the 
spring-time  vigour,  of  Belfast  are  splendid.  But 
we  must  remember  that  Belfast  and  the  neigh- 
bouring part  of  Ulster  are  the  only  places  in  Ireland 
where  enterprise  and  spring-time  vigour  were  not 
suppressed  by  law.  If  Belfast  linen  had  been 
put  under  the  same  penalties  as  Galway  wool, 
we  should  have  had  no  populous  thriving  Belfast 
to  praise  to-day.  There  is  an  idea  abroad  among 
those  who  do  not  know  Irish  history,  that  the 


LYNCH'S   HOUSE,   GALWAY. 


\^Laivreiue. 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  21 

Gaelic  Irishman  is  born  without  the  virtues  which 
enable  a  man  to  labour  and  to  "pay  his  bills.  So 
persistent  has  been  the  defamation  of  Ireland, 
indeed,  that  even  since  Mrs.  Green  has  given  us 
the  facts,  in  her  great  study  of  the  medieval 
civilisation  of  Ireland,  The  Making  of  Ireland 
and  its  Undoing,  people  go  on  writing  as  though 
Ireland  had  never  produced  a  race  of  craftsmen 
and  merchants  of  her  own,  but  had  been  a  mere 
precinct  of  religion  and  cattle-thieving  except 
for  the  industrious  invaders  who  settled  behind 
the  walls  of  her  towns  and  created  beautiful  and 
useful  things,  to  make  the  name  of  the  country 
known  in  every  port  of  Europe.  .  .  .  Well,  the 
industry  of  the  invaders  was  soon  suppressed, 
from  London,  too.  But  Mrs.  Green  has  proved 
very  clearly  that  the  old  Irishman  and  the  new 
Irishman  fell  in  an  equal  ruin  in  Galway  and  the 
other  towns  when  the  great  Imperial  laws  against 
work  were  put  into  operation. 

The  one  world-famous  man  whose  bones  lie 
in  the  Church  of  St.  Nicholas  was  not  an  old 
Irishman,  but  a  new  Irishman,  and  his  memory 
lives  not  because  he  was  a  great  trader  but  because 
he  slew  his  son.  This  was  Mayor  James  Lynch 
Fitzstephen,  a  commercial  prince  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  by  whose  labours  trade  and  hospitality 
were  greatly  increased  between  Galway  and 
Spain.  He  would  probably  have  lived  unknown 
to  history  if  he  himself  had  not  made  the  voyage 


22  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

to  Spain  and  brought  back  with  him  a  young 
Spanish  gentleman,  the  son  of  one  of  his  hosts, 
on  a  visit  to  Ireland.  Lynch  had  a  son  of  his  own, 
impulsive  and  riotous.  Between  the  latter  and 
the  Spaniard  a  jealous  quarrel  broke  out  about 
some  woman,  and  it  ended  with  young  Lynch 
giving  a  stab  to  his  rival,  so  that  he  died.  He  at 
once  surrendered  to  justice,  and  his  father  was 
the  magistrate  who  tried  him  and  sentenced  him 
to  death,  in  spite  of  the  prayers  of  the  towns- 
people, who  seem  to  have  liked  the  young  man 
well.  Nor  was  this  the  whole  of  the  elder's  iron 
righteousness ;  for,  when  no  one  could  be  found 
in  Galway  to  carry  out  the  sentence.  Lynch  hanged 
the  boy  with  his  own  hand. 

On  the  wall  which  encloses  the  churchyard,  a 
stone  marks  the  spot  where  this  ancient  piece  of 
justice  was  done.  It  is  aptly  carved  with  a 
death's-head  and  crossbones,  and  under  these  the 
motto  :  "  Remember  Deathe,  Vaniti  of  Vaniti. 
And  Al  Is  But  Vaniti." 

If  you  let  the  sexton  take  you  up  to  the  bell- 
tower  and  show  you  Galway  and  its  streets  from 
that  height,  you  will  as  likely  as  not  get  the  im- 
pression that  you  are  looking  out  upon  a  city 
where  the  very  houses  are  death's-heads.  Skulls 
of  lofty  mansions,  the  windowlessness  of  which 
gives  an  appearance  as  of  empty  eye-sockets,  line 
the  streets  in  graveyard  ruin.  Other  buildings 
lie  in  stony  masses,  like  bones  heaped  and  mixed 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  23 

together  in  an  old  tomb.  No  one  who  has  not 
seen  Galway  from  a  height  like  this  can  realise 
to  the  full  what  an  air  the  place  has  of  a  town 
awaiting  a  blessed  resurrection.  Little  of  the 
grand  life  has  been  left  here.  Emptiness  sits 
in  the  places  of  abundance.  Tall  and  smokeless 
chimneys  rise  everywhere,  giving  the  town  at 
noonday  the  appearance  that  other  cities  have 
at  dawn.  So  hollow  of  joy  and  vigour  does  this 
grey  town  look  from  the  tower  of  St.  Nicholas 
that  it  has  been  likened  fitly  enough  to  a  scooped- 
out  egg-shell.  Flour-mills,  factories — how  many 
were  there  even  thirty  years  ago  that  are  now  silent 
behind  cobwebs  and  broken  windows  !  The 
old  sexton  gave  us  figures,  and  they  stay  in  my 
memory — for  unhappily  I  have  not  the  genius 
for  note-taking — as  a  ratio  of  about  twenty  to 
three.  As  he  told  us  of  the  decline  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  town,  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike, 
a  funeral  procession  moved  across  the  bridge  by 
the  gaol,  with  mourners  riding  after  it  on  slow 
horses  under  the  branches  of  the  trees. 

When  we  came  down  from  the  tower,  we  went 
round  some  of  the  ruined  streets,  past  many  a 
modern  house  with  an  old  stone  bearing  some 
tribal  coat-of-arms  let  into  the  wall  over  the  door, 
and  climbed  the  steps  of  an  ancient  broken 
castle,  in  which  a  man  and  a  small  boy  were  busy 
among  cases  of  type,  setting  up  the  pages  of  a 
weekly  newspaper.     But,  as  I  have  said  before,  I 


24  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

do  not  want  to  give  any  one  the  impression  that 
Galway  is  all  dead.  There  are  tobacconists' 
shops  and  grocers  and  drapers  and  public -houses, 
and  a  book-shop  where  you  can  buy  Jane  Eyre 
(in  a  sixpenny  edition)  and  the  novels  of  Mrs. 
Henry  Wood.  .  .  . 

In  the  evening  the  hotel  became  a  house  of 
crowds,  and  crowds  within  crowds.  As  each 
new  train  arrived,  ones  and  twos  and  threes  of 
men  and  women,  with  their  coats  and  sticks 
and  baggage,  seemed  every  minute  to  be  projected 
into  the  already  overcrowded  dining-sitting-room, 
with  the  air  of  bewildered  sheep.  They  sat  down, 
as  they  came  in,  at  the  disordered  tables,  where 
pieces  of  broken  bread,  knives,  forks,  spoons, 
empty  unwashed  glasses,  stains,  bottles  of  sauces, 
and  the  remains  of  earlier  meals  gave  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  battlefield  where  hunger  had  been 
worsted,  but  not  without  casualties.  Pots  of  tea, 
bottles  of  stout,  glasses  of  whisky, — or  rather 
bottles  of  whisky,  for  the  guest  was  decently 
given  the  bottle  to  help  himself, — rashers  of  bacon, 
fragments  of  fowl,  steaks,  loaves,  jam-dishes, 
rattled  in  on  loaded  trays  as  the  new  guests 
arrived,  and  at  each  of  the  tables  and  corners  of 
tables  a  mumbled  conversation  would  begin. 

In  crowded  hotels — at  least  in  some  parts  of 
Ireland — the  conversation  often  begins  in  this 
muttering  shyness.  Here  and  there  a  loud  voice 
rises  courageously,  from  the  first  bite,  but,  as  a 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  25 

rule,  people  are  too  self-conscious — too  conscious, 
rather,  of  the  presence  of  neighbours  with  a 
possible  gift  for  satire — to  talk  freely  till  their 
blood  has  been  warmed.  Even  excited  and  angry- 
arguments  are  carried  on,  with  an  infinity  of 
facial  expression  and  gesture,  in  the  voices  of 
conspirators.  Thus,  in  an  Irish  hotel,  a  stranger 
often  might  well  feel  that  he  was  in  the  midst  of 
a  plot — that  each  corner  of  the  room  was  con- 
spiring against  him  :  for  though  every  one  resents 
the  curiosity  of  his  neighbour's  ears,  his  own 
eyes  are  continually  darting  glances  of  curiosity 
all  round  him.  Solitary  persons  occasionally 
come  and  look  through  the  door,  and  shy  of  so 
many  eyes,  slip  quietly  off  to  the  less  dreadful 
discomfort  of  their  bedrooms. 

For  myself,  I  am  always  in  these  places  wishing 
the  floor  would  open  and  swallow  me.  ...  It 
is  an  awful  thing  to  go  to  bed  at  ten.  But  amid 
the  murmuring  plots  of  a  hotel  sitting-room  it 
may  be  even  a  more  trying  ordeal  to  sit  up. 
One  had  to  fly  somewhere  out  of  that  prison 
of  constraint  and  low  voices.  Consequently,  to 
bed — to  bed  in  the  little  wooden  box  where  the 
door  would  not  keep  shut. 

To  bed,  but  not  to  sleep.  Everywhere,  as  well  as 
in  the  sitting-room,  these  mumbled  conversations 
seemed  to  be  going  on,  broken  now  and  then  by 
the  voice  of  some  confident  fun-poking  young 
man,   a   girl's   titter,   and   little   bass   growls   of 


26  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

laughter.  People  stopped  just  outside  one's  door 
and  entered  into  conversations  that  seemed  to  last 
for  hours.  The  clock  struck,  the  clock  struck 
again,  and  still  the  house  was  a  house  of  subdued 
narratives,  excited  as  a  school  that  is  going  to 
break  up  the  next  day  for  the  summer  holidays. 
As  time  wore  on,  we  would  hear  good-nights 
interchanged,  and  a  last  call  of  "  See  you  in  the 
morning,"  and  the  leap  of  heavy  boots  up  the 
stairs,  or  their  tramp  along  a  corridor  would  be 
the  preliminary  to  a  lull.  But  new  sturdy  ghosts 
would  arrive,  and  the  conversations  would  go  on. 
Gradually,  towards  the  small  hours,  the  good- 
nights  increased  in  frequency,  and  with  each  of  them 
one  seemed  to  be  let  down  another  step  towards 
silence.  Where  men  mumbled  before  they  now 
spoke  in  whispers.  Soon  the  creaking  of  boards 
under  huge  boots  became  a  startling  interruption. 
It  affected  the  imagination  like  the  tramping  of 
the  warder  past  a  corridor  of  prison  cells — a 
tramping  and  banging  to  an  end  of  silence.  One 
ceased  to  hear  the  whispers  save  as  the  fall  and  ebb 
of  little,  lulling  waves.  Tramp,  tramp,  tramp, 
tramp.  Door-bang.  Again  the  little,  lulling 
waves,  waves.  Tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  tramp. 
Door-bang.  The  little  waves  are  lapping  my 
face.     They  are  rising  above  my  ears.     The  tide 

is    nearly    full.     Tramp,    tramp,    tr Even 

Galway  ghosts  can  keep  me  awake  no  longer. 
Next  morning  was  filled  with  sun.     It  was  one 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  27 

of  those  happy,  gold  mornings  when  the  farmer's 
daughter  dresses  in  white.  Galway  rose  to  greet 
it  in  a  garment  of  dust.  Her  streets,  Sabbatic- 
looking  with  all  the  principal  shops  closed,  had 
none  the  less  a  certain  keen  vitality,  as  country- 
people  came  in  to  view  them  before  going  to  the 
races,  and  young  racing  enthusiasts  ran  about 
looking  for  a  newsagent's  or  a  barber's.  Within  a 
few  minutes  of  the  arrival  of  the  Dublin  train, 
there  was  hardly  a  paper  to  be  had.  Small 
energetic  boys  refused  to  sell  you  an  Independent 
for  a  halfpenny  to-day.  It  was  Galway's  one 
chance  in  the  year  of  selling  in  the  dearest  market ; 
and  even  the  halfpenny  paper  was  raised  to  a 
penny.  Near  the  newsagent's  shop  a  barber's 
pole  slanted  out  over  the  pavement,  and  with  a 
file  of  other  bearded  pards  I  went  in  to  get  shaved. 
Every  chair  in  the  place  had  already  an  occupant 
being  violently  lathered  or  scraped  in  front  of  a 
mirror.  The  long  bench  against  the  wall  was 
filled  with  young  men,  smoking  and  reading 
papers  or  yawning  post-alcoholic  yawns,  and  at 
the  far  end  of  the  form,  in  contrast  to  us  all,  sat 
a  peasant  in  a  tam-o'-shanter,  lean-faced,  dark, 
wind-inured,  with  long  hair  pouring  over  his 
ears — a  man  from  the  Aran  Islands,  I  think,  in 
an  ungainly  grey  homespun  coat  and  yellowish- 
grey  trousers — a  man  who,  with  his  eagle  nose  and 
his  thrust-out  chin,  had  a  curious  look  of  Dante. 
As  I  sat  waiting,  I  was  especially  fascinated  by  one 


28  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

of  the  five  or  six  barbers  who  were  performing 
their  lightning  labours  with  more  energy  than 
skill  or  gentleness  on  the  faces  of  their  patients. 
He  was  a  stout,  round  man  who,  as  he  set  to  his 
work  with  his  shirt  sleeves  rolled  high  up,  looked 
more  like  a  blacksmith  than  a  barber.  Or  per- 
haps I  should  say  like  a  butcher.  Or  perhaps  a 
stableman.  Possibly  he  did  actually  belong  to 
one  of  these  professions,  and  had  only  taken  to 
barbering  in  order  to  meet  an  emergency.  Any- 
how, he  used  the  soap-brush  and  the  razor  like 
a  man  who  was  playing  a  mischievous  game 
rather  than  a  professional.  If  he  pushed  the  soap 
into  a  nose  or  eye  or  ear,  he  began  to  shake  with 
cheerfulness  :  his  puffy  red  cheeks,  his  big  rough 
moustache,  his  comfortable  stomach,  all  appeared 
to  be  sharing  in  some  secret  merriment.  As  for 
the  razor,  he  used  it  as  though  he  were  currying 
a  horse.  He  made  one  drag  across  the  face  from 
ear  to  chin,  and  another  drag  down  the  throat, 
and  after  about  four  drags  sponged  off  the  soap 
and  the  blood  and  said  "  Fourpence,  please  !  " 
with  a  genial  twinkle,  as  though  you,  being  a 
sportsman,  could  feel  no  offence  because  of  a 
few  wounds  contracted  in  honourable  battle. 
One  young  man  rose  from  the  chair  and  looked 
in  the  mirror  at  the  torn  skin  of  his  cheek  and  the 
blood  pouring  from  a  great  gash  in  his  chin. 

"  I'll  remember  you  this  day  month,"  he  said 
to  the  barber,  as  he  wiped  his  face  with  a  towel. 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  29 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  said  the  jolly  fat 
barber. 

"  I  say  I'll  remember  you  this  day  month," 
repeated  the  other  grimly.  "  You've  left  your 
mark,  never  fear."  And  he  paid  the  barber  what 
he  owed  him  and  probably  a  little  more. 

"  No  offence,"  said  the  barber  gaily,  pocketing 
the  money  ;  "  thank  you,  sir,"  and  the  young 
man  went  out.  "  Bloody  fool !  "  said  the  barber, 
looking  round  us  with  a  laugh. 

I  will  confess  that  I  did  not  laugh.  My  own 
turn  had  not  arrived  yet,  and  I  dreaded  to  come 
under  the  razor  of  this  good-humoured  butcher 
as  I  would  dread  being  charged  down  and  mutilated 
by  Cossacks.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  my  turn 
did  come,  and  this  particular  barber  said,  "  Next, 
please  !  "  invitingly,  I  was  dishonest  enough  to 
look  the  other  way  while  an  impatient  stable-boy 
unscrupulously  dashed  for  the  empty  chair.  I 
am  afraid  he  was  pachydermatous  and  did  not 
suffer  as  he  ought  for  his  greed. 

Meanwhile  a  lean  young  barber  at  the  other 
end  of  the  room  was  looking  with  dismay  at  the 
shaggy  mane  of  the  Aran  man. 

"  Hair-cutting's  sixpence  to-day,"  he  said 
warningly,  wishing  probably  neither  to  cut  the 
islander's  hair  nor  to  let  him  in  for  the  double 
prices  of  the  day. 

The  islander  twisted  his  gloomy,  beaked  face 
into  an  "  Eh  ?  " 


30  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

"  Hair-cutting's  sixpence  to-day,"  repeated 
the  barber  in  deliberate  tones,  as  though  speaking 
to  a  deaf  man  or  to  one  who  did  not  understand 
English. 

"  Sixpence  ?  "  the  other  repeated,  a  puzzled 
and  threatening  look  coming  into  his  face ; 
"  go  ahead,"  and  he  settled  himself,  a  little 
offendedly,  into  his  chair. 

After  that,  luckily  before  the  stout  barber  had 
finished  with  his  last  victim,  another  chair  was 
empty,  and  a  little  spry  barber  was  apologising 
to  me  and  asking  for  the  loan  of  my  paper  "  just 
for  a  second,"  before  beginning  to  shave  me.  He 
was  an  averagely  good  barber — as  good  as  could 
be  expected  when  one  is  being  shaved,  as  it  were, 
in  a  tumult.  But  when  I  got  out  into  the  air 
again  I  breathed  deeply  and  gladly,  like  a  man 
who  has  escaped  from  a  tight  corner. 

Galway  was  by  now  filling  with  cars  from  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  Everybody  was  getting  ready 
to  go  to  the  races.  Youths  in  caps  stood  round 
the  steps  of  our  hotel  and  welcomed  noisily 
any  new  friend  who  came  up  to  join  their  group. 
One  youth,  with  his  cap  over  his  eyes,  would  scrim- 
mage into  the  group  on  his  toes,  like  a  footballer, 
while  his  arms  embraced  all  the  necks  near  him, 
and  he  demanded  musically — "  Has  anybody 
here  seen  Kelly  —  K  —  E  —  double  L  — Y?" 
Then  another  figure,  hands  in  pockets,  would 
come   up    to    shouts    of    "  Paddy !  "     "  Hilloa, 


GAL  WAY  OF  THE  RACES  31 

Padd)^ !  "  "  Where  the  bloody  hell  have  you 
been,  Paddy  ?  "  And  Paddy,  closed  in  by 
questioning  faces,  like  the  examinee  in  the  game 
of  Oranges  and  Lemons.  w^T'ld  confess  with  a  grin 
of  imitation  shame :    ''  '^  •„    I   haven't    been 

sober  for  a  week." 

His  confession  would  be  received  with  mighty 
interest  and  chaffing  interrogations  on  his  ad- 
ventures, until  Billy  hove  in  sight.  Then  the 
cry  of  the  pack  would  go  up  :  "  Billy  !  "  "  Hilloa, 
Billy  !  "  "  Where  the  bloody  hell  have  you 
sprung  from,  Billy  ?  "  And  so  ancient  friend- 
ships would  be  exuberantly  renewed  and  old 
meetings  on  half  the  racecourses  of  Ireland  be 
recalled. 

Everybody  was  now  flying  or  making  ready  to 
fly  to  the  racecourse,  which  is  about  two  miles 
to  the  east  of  the  town.  Every  man  who  owns 
a  vehicle  of  any  sort  in  that  part  of  Ireland,  even 
if  it  is  only  a  dilapidated  and  out-of-fashion 
side-car  inherited  from  a  long  dead  great-grand- 
father, brings  it  to  Galway  at  the  time  of  the 
races  and  excitedly  sells  seats  on  it  for  as  much  as 
he  can  get  for  them.  Monstrous  brakes  that 
must  date  from  the  old  days  before  railway  trains, 
and  that  appear  never  to  have  had  the  dust  and 
mud  taken  off  them  since — the  very  reins  and  har- 
ness seeming  to  be  an  affair  of  patches  and  pieces 
of  string — rumble  into  Eyre  Square  at  one  corner 
and  out  again  at  another.     Little  low  dirty  cars 


32  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

with  sloping  backs,  and  drawn  now  by  a  horse 
from  the  plough,  now  by  some  old  pensioner  from 
the  stable,  with  all  its  bones  showing,  follow  in 
the  dusty  procession,  and  are  as  sure  of  clients 
as  the  brisker  cars  with  the  well-fed  and  sinewy 
animals.  Endless  seems  the  line  of  these  vehicles 
that  marches  down  the  hill,  while  the  hoofs  of 
walking  horses  kick  up  the  white  dust  from  the 
broken  road,  and  drivers,  cars,  and  horses,  one  by 
one,  get  to  look  as  if  they  had  come  from  the  yard 
of  a  busy  flour-mill. 

Thinner  and  thinner  became  the  population  of 
the  town  as  holiday-makers  with  excited  eyes, 
after  shouting  bargains  with  the  extemporised 
jarveys,  leaped  on  the  long  chain  of  cars  or 
scrambled  into  the  brakes.  The  air  was  full  of 
thrills.  Aged  paupers  leaned  against  the  railings 
of  the  Square  gardens,  twisted  sticks  propping 
them  up  or  tucked  under  their  arms,  and  watched 
the  bold  youths  and  the  gay  white  maidens  drive 
off,  a  multitudinous  pilgrimage  to  a  multitudinous 
paradise.  My  landlord,  standing  on  a  doorstep 
and  making  introductions  like  a  master  of  cere- 
monies, looked  out  on  the  gaiety  of  it  all,  contented 
as  a  pigeon  watching  a  river  go  by.  He  wasn't 
going  to  the  races  himself,  but  all  his  family 
was  going. 

"  You're  driving  to  the  field,  Mr.  Lynd  ?  " 
he  asked  me. 

I  told  him  we  were.     He  nodded  intelligence. 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  33 

"  I'd  advise  you,  Mr.  Lynd,"  he  said  in  a  kindly 
voice,  "  to  get  a  seat  on  one  of  them  brakes. 
There's  less  chance  of  accidents.  A  horse  in  a 
car  would  be  more  apt  to  stumble." 

One  could  certainly  imagine  the  horses  in  the 
cars  stumbling  or  bolting  or  playing  any  sort  of 
wild  destructive  tricks  in  those  exciting  streets. 
Many  by  this  time  had  made  the  circuit  to  and 
from  the  course  several  times  already,  and  patterns 
of  sweat  were  showing  on  their  bodies  under 
the  harness,  and  the  wind  was  roaring  in  a  few 
broken  specimens  as  in  the  throat  of  an  old  man. 
Our  only  chance  of  getting  a  car — for  our  land- 
lord's luxurious  gloom  was  not  to  intimidate  us — 
was  to  go  and  meet  the  vehicles  as  they  came  into 
the  town. 

"  How  much  ?  "  a  bristly-chinned  man  in  a 
white  coat  would  ask  an  approaching  driver,  who 
would  lean  over,  his  face  thrust  forward  greedily, 
and  say — 

"  A  half-crown  apiece." 

"  Guess  again,"  the  man  with  the  bristly  chin 
would  reply,  his  eyes  wandering  to  the  next  car. 

"  I'll  take  you  for  two  shillings,"  the  driver 
would  offer. 

"  I  wish  you  may  get  it,"  says  the  man  with 
the  bristly  chin,  and  turns  to  his  haggling  with 
the  next  carman. 

We  got  on  the  side  of  a  car  and  began  our  rush 
for  the  field.  We  stopped  to  take  other  passengers 
3 


34  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

up  before  long,  and  soon  even  the  well  of  the 
the  car  had  a  young  man  with  a  briar  pipe  sitting 
on  it.  Off  we  dashed  out  of  the  town  and  up 
the  long  hill  after  all  the  horsed  vehicles  of 
Connacht,  swaying  and  swinging  past  the  stone 
walls  of  the  fields  and  the  grassy  roadsides  thick 
with  a  low  rain  of  dust.  Our  speed  was  only 
limited  by  the  speed  of  the  car  that  went  before. 
It  was  our  glory  to  come  so  near  it  that  our  horse's 
mouth  would  be  within  biting  distance  of  the 
hindmost  occupant  of  it.  If  possible,  we  refrained 
from  passing  it — just  kept  the  horse's  muzzle 
boastfully  threatening  the  dangling  legs  of  some 
poor  fellow  who  dare  not  take  his  eyes  off  it  even 
for  a  moment's  look  at  the  scenery.  Now  and 
then,  to  be  sure,  a  motor-car  would  toot  by,  and, 
following  a  bad  example,  we  too  would  pass  a 
less  impetuous  neighbour ;  but  on  the  whole  we 
followed  the  ancient  fashion  of  politeness  till  we 
arrived  at  a  gap  in  a  wall  which  admitted  us  across 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  fields  to  the  racecourse. 

The  racecourse,  with  its  grandstand  and  its 
hurdles  and  banks  and  wall-jumps,  lies,  a  crooked 
loop,  on  a  hillside.  It  is  a  very  beautiful  world 
of  grey  and  blue  that  you  see  from  it — grey  of 
stone  and  gull  and  cloud,  blue  of  sky  and  hill- 
bound  bay  with  the  white  island  lighthouse 
rising  among  the  waters.  Going  over  the  fields, 
one  sees  a  long  line  of  emptied  cars  along  the 
sky-line  returning  to  Galway  by  another  route. 


GAL  WAY  OF  THE  RACES  35 

and  the  clear  air  is  full  of  the  murmur  of  holiday 
— of  bookmaker  and  fruit-seller  and  showman 
with  cocoanut-shies  and  Aunt  Sallies.  Some 
cars  drive  over  the  fields  and  take  up  their  stand 
near  the  bookmakers  opposite  the  winning-post. 
Here  high  iron  railings  cage  the  democracy  on 
one  side  of  the  course,  while  on  the  other  side  the 
grandstand  is  full  of  the  movement  of  fashion 
and  field-glasses.  About  a  hundred  yards  from 
this,  at  the  bottom  of  a  slope,  the  cheap  lemonade 
sellers  and  mirth-providing  showmen  have  pitched 
their  tents,  and  between  this  and  the  course 
itself  constant  rivers  of  the  aimless,  the  older  men 
in  tail-coats  and  wideawakes,  are  wandering. 
The  bookmakers  who  have  fixed  up  their  stands 
like  a  thousand  auctioneers  in  a  clump  near  the 
railings  draw  all  eyes  and  a  good  many  pockets 
as  the  time  for  a  race  approaches.  They  are  on 
the  whole  a  serious  and  business-like-looking  set 
of  men.  There  are  none  of  the  comedian  sort 
of  bookmakers  here  such  as  I  have  seen  on  an 
English  course.  They  do  not,  however,  avoid 
checks  in  the  pattern  of  their  clothes,  and  they 
have,  most  of  them,  the  air  of  men  who  take  a 
materialistic  and  cunning  view  of  life. 

"  Six  to  four  against  Marcella  !  Six  to  four 
against  Marcella,  and  five  to  one  bar  one !  "  rose 
the  clamour  from  them,  like  the  barking  of  dogs 
round  a  pond ;  and,  as  the  clerk  registered 
each  innocent  bet  in  his  long  ledger,  the  odds 


36  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

against  the  favourite  would  come  down,  and  the 
master-bookie  would  make  a  change  on  the  board 
of  prices  with  a  bit  of  chalk.  "  Five  to  four  against 
Marcella  !  I'm  giving  five  to  four  against  Mar- 
cella  !  "  he  would  drone  monotonously,  allowing 
himself  no  quirks  of  humour  or  fancy. 

One  of  the  bookies,  a  big  round-whiskered  man 
with  a  crimson  face,  check  trousers,  a  coachman's 
broad  black  hat,  and  with  a  case  of  field-glasses 
slung  round  his  shoulders,  bawled  the  words 
apoplectically.  Another,  narrow  of  temples,  dull 
of  eye,  with  a  fan  of  sallow  nose  intensifying  the 
lean  appearance  of  his  solemn  face,  contrived 
to  speak  the  words  with  almost  no  expression  at 
all :  he  was  more  colourless  than  his  dust-coat, 
much  more  so  than  his  pale  brown  hat.  Another, 
at  once  respectable  and  boozy-faced,  with  a  pink 
flower  in  his  velvet-collared  coat,  offered  the  odds 
sulkily  but  energetically  from  his  fat  mouth. 
And  country  boys  moved  in  and  out  among  them 
smilingly  but  withholdingly,  having  no  florins 
to  risk  on  blood  horses.  An  occasional  lady, 
masterful  in  a  tweed  hat  and  jacket,  came  forward 
and  got  a  receipt  for  a  bet,  and  the  population 
of  the  town  billiard-rooms  nipped  up  by  ones  and 
twos  and  backed  their  own  cunning  against  the 
cunning  of  the  furtive-eyed  bookies.  When  the 
horses  came  out  and  began  cantering  down  the 
course  with  little  swift  trial  thuds,  the  bookies 
raised  their  voices  to  a  higher  note  and  began 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  37 

shouting  feverishly  like  prophets.  It  was  as 
though  they  were  calling  to  the  crowd  to  repent 
while  there  was  yet  time. 

Out  would  come  a  jockey  in  a  costume,  half 
cherry-coloured  and  half  blue,  with  an  orange- 
peaked,  chocolate-coloured  cap,  and  would  bolt 
down  the  course  with  head  lowered  on  the  back 
of  a  huge  bay.  The  crowd  began  to  rush  to  the 
railings  to  get  commanding  positions,  to  look 
over  hats  and  shoulders,  to  struggle  into  rifts 
in  the  human  mass,  to  leap  on  to  the  few  cars 
that  had  come  up  there,  to  fly  from  the  bookies 
who  clamoured  like  a  lot  of  gulls  as  they  offered 
a  last  chance  of  a  bet. 

"  Evens  on  Marcella  !  I'll  take  evens  on 
Marcella  !  "  they  shouted,  as  though  the  end 
of  the  world  might  happen  the  next  moment  and 
it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  have  put  money  on 
Marcella  before  you  died.  Red,  yellow,  orange, 
blue,  green,  indigo,  violet — purple,  mauve,  maroon, 
grey,  black,  white,  brown — stars,  stripes,  bars — 
jockeys  in  costumes  of  every  colour  and  every 
pattern  now  flocked  on  to  the  course,  looking  like 
a  school  of  circus  boys,  and,  after  a  preliminary 
breather,  ambled  back  up  the  hill  with  humped 
shoulders.  Then,  as  grey  -  shawled  women 
elbowed  their  way  forward  to  the  railings  and 
old  men  in  tam-o'-shanters  with  smiles  on  their 
wrinkled  faces  made  room  for  them,  the  animals 
gathered  at  the  starting-post  and  curveted  and 


38  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

champed    and   turned   their   heads,   waiting   till 
the  bell  rang. 

The  bell  rang.  The  horses  broke  away  like 
a  whirl  of  autumn  leaves  and  swept  past  us 
thunderously.  As  soon  as  the  bell  rang,  the 
clamour  of  the  bookies  died  away  like  a  sound  in 
a  dream  or  like  a  wave  that  had  broken.  It  was 
as  though  the  world  were  filled  suddenly  with  an 
intense  silence,  though  now  and  then,  as  Marcella 
leaped  a  bank  with  the  grace  of  a  hare  or  Jumping 
Jehosaphat,  bundling  in  her  wake,  scrambled 
over  a  stone  wall,  you  would  hear  a  grunt,  a  sort 
of  stenographic  soliloquy,  coming  out  under  the 
field-glasses  of  some  bookie,  and  buzzing  arguments 
would  begin  and  cease  among  the  crowd  as  to 
whether  it  was  Marcella  that  was  leading  after 
all,  or  whether  it  was  Lame  Duck,  whose 
rider  and  Marcella's  wore  scarcely  distinguishable 
colours.  Ten  thousand  eyes  clung  to  the  leaders 
of  the  straggling  line  of  horses  that  galloped  the 
ups  and  downs  of  the  long  course,  clearing  gate 
and  bank  and  green-branched  hurdle,  lessening 
in  number  as  an  occasional  rider  might  despair 
and  fall  out,  disappearing  from  sight  behind  some 
hillock,  coming  into  view  again  in  a  new  and 
exciting  order,  a  royal  line  of  gay  colour  and  lovely 
movement.  It  was  through  a  crowd  intent  like 
this  upon  thrilling  events  that  a  barefooted 
woman  moved  with  a  basket  of  fruit  on  her  arm, 
offering  plums  for  sale  in  the  shyest  voice  im- 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  39 

aginable.  She  was  sad-faced  under  her  shawl. 
"  Anny  plums  ?  "  she  intoned  in  a  singsong  voice, 
her  eyes  moving  from  indifferent  face  to  in- 
different face  ;   "  anny  plums  ?  " 

It  was  a  note  of  sweet  music  in  the  buzzing 
atmosphere.  It  was  business,  but,  like  the  selling 
of  sweet  lavender  in  the  streets  of  London,  it 
was  business  to  a  tune.  "  Anny  plums  ?  "  she 
almost  whispered,  as  though  it  were  possibly 
indecent — and  it  was — to  suggest  that  a  man 
might  want  to  eat  plums  while  the  fate  of  his 
half-sovereign  hung  in  the  balance.  Then  she 
was  out  of  sight  in  the  crowd.  But  still,  ever 
and  anon,  her  "  Anny  plums  ?  "  rang  out  like 
a  little  muted  bell.  Then  it  was  drowned  in 
the  rising  growl  of  a  crowd  shouting  the  names  of 
horses  near  the  winning-post  into  the  air.  Or 
rather  I  should  say  of  the  sporting  minority  of 
the  crowd,  for  the  average  Galwayman — at  least, 
the  Galway  peasant — is  little  ruffled  by  the  excite- 
ments of  a  flash-past  of  horses  whose  names  he  has 
learned  for  the  first  time  from  a  neighbour's 
racing-card.  He  watches  it  critically  as  he  might 
look  at  a  neighbour's  pig.  He  seems  to  bring  his 
quiet  subliminal  self,  not  his  tumultuous  surface 
self,  to  the  contemplation  of  these  steeplechasing 
circus  boys.  And  it  is  no  wonder,  for,  with  the 
big  cage  of  railings  in  front  of  him  and  a  dis- 
appearing racecourse  to  right  and  to  left  of  him, 
he  can  only  follow  a  race  in  fragments.     That  is 


40  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

why  so  many  of  the  crowd  gradually  get  tired 
and  dander  down  the  slope  towards  the  booths 
and  stands  of  the  uproarious  showmen. 

Here  tents  had  been  set  up  with  a  two-days' 
licence  to  sell  liquor.  Other  stalls  were  heaped 
with  halfpenny  cakes  with  a  snow  of  red  and 
white  caraway  seeds  on  them,  rocks  of  vile 
yellow  sweet-stuff,  penny  packets  of  biscuits — 
such  biscuits  ! — penny  bottles  of  lemonade,  and 
all  those  other  gaieties  of  the  stomach  which  are 
only  tolerated  because  they  are  associated  with 
holiday.  While  we  were  standing  at  one  of  these 
places  buying  biscuits,  a  dirty-cheeked  baby  leaned 
over  from  the  arms  of  a  beggar  woman  and  held 
out  a  half-chewed  pig's  foot  towards  the  mouth 
of  my  companion. 

"  Ah,  ma'am,"  said  the  mother,  with  a  proud 
smile,  "  he's  mad  for  mate.  You  could  never 
tire  him  giving  him  mate.  Tell  the  lady,"  she 
said,  giving  him  a  hugging  shake,  "  what  a  terror 
you  are  for  mate,  Michael." 

I  confess  to  a  certain  squeamishness  as  I  watched 
the  baby  filthying  its  mouth  with  that  odious 
piece  of  carnality,  but  at  the  same  time  by  an 
irresponsible  association  of  memories  the  latter 
called  up  a  summer  day  ten  years  before  when  on 
a  Twelfth  of  July  holiday  I  had  marched  with  the 
Belfast  Orangemen  (not  as  one  of  them,  alas,  but 
as  a  stranger !)  out  to  the  field  of  assembly,  and 
there,    amid    the    colours    and    excited    din    of 


GAL  WAY  OF  THE  RACES  41 

loyalty,  had  seen  a  stall  of  trotters  bearing  the 
motto  :  "  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Pigs'  Feet." 
After  that,  I  looked  more  tolerantly  on  the  infant 
and  the  pig's  foot  it  was  sucking. 

There  were  pitches  of  recreation  as  well  as 
refreshment  on  the  Galway  racecourse.  Painted 
wooden  images  of  men  rose  in  little  companies 
in  front  of  a  screen  of  sacking  and  leered  in- 
vitation at  one,  while  viragoes  with  red  faces, 
thick  necks,  and  touzled  lint  -  coloured  hair 
screamed  at  all  present  to  come  and  have  a  shy 
at  the  wooden  figures,  which  collapsed  at  the 
hinged  middle  if  struck  hard  with  a  ball  between 
the  eyes.  If  you  have  never  seen  a  tinker  woman 
scream,  you  can  have  no  idea  what  a  grotesque 
symbol  of  hubbub  she  makes.  She  begins  by 
throwing  her  lawless  head  back,  with  her  hands 
on  her  hips,  and  shouting  "  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  !  " 
— not  as  a  laugh,  but  as  three  distinct  heaven- 
splitting  syllables — or  hell-splitting,  if  you  like, 
for  it  sounds  like  the  mirth  of  the  damned. 
"  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  !  "  she  yells  ;  "  ha  !  ha  !  ha  ! 
Come  on,  come  on,  come  on.  Come  on,  all  you 
Galway  blazers  and  sportsmen.  Three  shots  a 
penny.  A  penny  for  three  shots.  Here  you  are, 
young  gentleman  !  "  she  goes  on,  never  lowering 
her  voice,  as  a  country  boy  takes  three  balls  from 
her  hand.  "  Here  you  are.  Three  shots  at  the 
old  man's  cocoanut.     And  mind  the  baby  !  " 

One  really  has  to  underline  the  woman's  humour 


42  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

in  order  to  give  an  impression  of  its  hysterical 
shrillness. 

"  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  !  you're  a  divil  at  it  !  Ha  ! 
ha  !  you're  a  divil  at  it,"  she  keeps  yelling  as  the 
balls  begin  to  fly.  "  One  shot  more,  and  a  man's 
down  !  And  mind  the  baby  !  Ha  !  ha  !  you're 
a  divil  at  it  !     Ha  !    ha  !    ha  !  " 

No  doubt  this  pseudo  -  frenzy  produces  its 
effect.  If  you  have  from  half  a  dozen  to  a  dozen 
women  and  men  howling  at  you  in  rivalry  the 
information  that  you're  a  divil  at  something  or 
other,  and  appealing  to  you  with  wild  cries  to 
mind  the  baby,  you  can  scarcely  help  being  drawn 
into  a  little  ring  of  excitement,  and,  once  you 
are  there,  a  terrific  show-woman  will  as  likely  as 
not  either  blandish  or  shame  you  into  trying 
to  knock  down  her  painted  dolls  and  win  her 
poisonous  cigars. 

But  there  were  other  games  besides  the  various 
sorts  of  Aunt  Sallies  and  the  kindred  cocoanut- 
shies.  There  were  card  games  and  trick-o'-the- 
loop  games,  and  there  was  the  game  in  which 
you  throw  rings  at  a  stand  full  of  walking-sticks 
and  attempt  to  win  one  of  the  latter  as  a  prize. 

The  game  around  which  the  greatest  crowd 
had  gathered  was  one  that  I  had  never  seen  before. 
Here  a  man  knelt  on  the  grass  a  few  yards  from 
you,  his  face  disguised  in  blackness  and  grins, 
his  head  stuck  with  feathers,  like  a  cheap  imitation 
of  a  Red  Indian,  and  allowed  you  to  throw  things 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  43 

at  him  at  two  shots  a  penny.  His  friend,  a  dark- 
faced  little  fellow  with  a  twinkling  eye,  in  a 
peaked  cap,  took  the  money  and  gave  you  the 
balls  to  throw  while  he  tried  to  keep  too  enthusi- 
astic sportsmen  from  overstepping  the  mark.  I 
do  not  think  the  balls  in  question  were  anything 
harder  than  roUed-up  stockings,  or  that  the  game 
was  more  cruel  than  a  pillow-fight.  But  I  have 
seldom  seen  a  game  enjoyed  more  furiously. 
Two  sportsmen  were  allowed  to  throw  at  a  time, 
and  it  was  the  black  man's  duty  by  dodging  and 
ducking  and  catching  the  balls  in  his  hands  to 
prevent  his  face  from  being  hit.  The  crowd, 
gathered  up  into  the  shape  of  a  tortoise,  swayed 
and  swung  round  the  combatants  and  laughed 
uproariously  as  a  blow  just  missed  the  feather- 
surrounded  face.  Occasionally  the  throwers, 
getting  excited,  would  run  in  over  the  mark  and 
attempt  to  punish  the  man  at  close  quarters. 
But  the  little  smiling  fellow  in  the  peaked  cap 
always  brought  them  back  in  the  best  of  humour 
with  the  phrase,  "  Fair's  fair,"  and,  as  soon  as 
either  of  the  balls  was  out  of  play,  he  thrust  it 
at  some  one  in  the  crowd,  saying  :  "  Come  on, 
boys,  come  on.     Keep  the  divilment  going." 

He  was  the  only  showman  in  the  place  who  was 
not  shouting.  As  he  stooped,  picking  up  the 
balls,  in  the  thick  of  the  eager  crowd,  he  seemed 
to  be  giving  the  impression  that  we  were  playing 
a  secret  game  which  might  be  stopped  by  the 


44  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

police  at  any  moment.  He  contrived  in  this 
way,  as  he  bounded  about  after  the  balls  with 
constantly  bubbling  laughter,  to  make  his 
innocent  game  as  exciting  as  cock-fighting.  He 
seldom  winked  up  with  a  "  Keep  the  divilment 
going  !  "  but  some  victim  fell  into  his  merry 
snare. 

Not  far  off,  in  a  space  between  two  tents,  an 
old  countryman  in  a  faded  high  hat  was  the 
centre  of  a  group  of  boys  who  seemed  to  be 
getting  ballads  out  of  him.  Unfortunately,  he 
was  rather  drunk,  and  they  were  beginning  to  be 
tipsy  too,  so  that  there  was  more  handshaking 
than  singing  done.  He  sang  to  them  mournfully 
in  Irish,  and  they  shook  hands  with  him  and 
with  each  other  over  that.  He  sang — or  rather 
alternately  moaned  and  skirled  —  a  scarcely 
recognisable  version  of  "  The  Boys  of  Wexford," 
and  at  the  end  of  almost  every  line  he  had  to  stop 
to  shake  hands  with  the  young  fellows  one  after 
the  other  in  an  exaggeration  of  the  country 
fashion.  As  soon  as  he  had  slobbered  one  song 
out  of  his  scraggy  and  ulcerous  face,  a  volley  of 
demands  for  a  dozen  other  songs  showered  down 
on  him.  One  big,  square-headed  boy,  with  red 
hair  and  freckled  face,  remains  in  my  mind  with 
especial  vividness,  as  he  kept  insisting  with  self- 
conscious  awkwardness  to  the  singer  :  "  Give  us 
'  The  Men  of  the  West.'  Give  us  '  The  Men  of 
the  West.'  " 


''.jATUi^  thouoh  tht-y  sl<*p  in  du-n^eorts  deep.  Ijl/ 


TSft  felons  of  our  la>ict 

fitiii//lliMlliliAlf//(( 


jjiiyuj^iij^iiiii^^ 


;ri«yifiH» 


THE    TREASON     SONG. 
Draivn  and  coloured  by  Jack  B,  Teats. 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  45 

I  do  not  wish  to  give  the  impression,  however, 
that  Galway  was  a  scene  of  much  drinking  on 
the  day  of  the  races.  I  never  saw  a  soberer  holiday- 
crowd  anywhere.  Compared  with  a  bank-holiday 
crowd  on  Hampstead  Heath,  for  instance,  it 
was  almost  Sabbatarian  in  its  decorousness.  In 
Ireland,  however,  one  drunk  man  is  as  con- 
spicuous as  a  thousand  sober  ones.  Drunk,  he 
forgets  his  shyness ;  he  asserts  his  individuality. 
But  he  is,  comparatively  speaking,  a  rare  bird  and 
an  exception  for  all  the  show  he  makes.  I  stress 
this  point  because  the  next  scene  to  which  we 
moved  on  had  another  tipsy  man  for  its  central 
figure. 

He  was  a  middle-aged  farmer  in  a  blue  tail-coat 
and  a  bowler  hat,  and  a  long  reddish  beard  seemed 
to  connect  him  with  respectability.  He  was 
standing  at  one  of  the  Aunt  Sally  pitches  where 
sticks  were  used  instead  of  balls  to  hurl  at  the 
figures,  and  when  the  showman,  red-nosed  and 
whitened  like  a  clown,  but  in  an  ordinary  bowler 
hat  and  blue  suit,  went  in  his  shirt  sleeves  to 
collect  the  used  sticks  at  the  back  of  the  stand, 
the  farmer  signalled  to  him  with  imperative 
good-humour  to  remain  where  he  was  and  become 
a  living  target.  The  showman  got  behind  one 
of  the  figures  and  grimaced  out  provocatively. 
The  farmer  flung  a  stick  at  him  ;  the  head  ducked 
and  bobbed  out,  a  second  after,  all  smiles.  The 
farmer  went  to  the  corner  of  the  roped-in  pitch 


46  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

and  made  faces  and  threatening  gestures  at  the 
showman,  who  put  his  five  fingers  to  his  nose 
insultingly.  Two  sticks  were  swiftly  and  suc- 
cessively hurled  from  this  point  of  vantage,  the 
clown  just  escaping  the  second  by  the  skin  of 
his  teeth — or  rather  by  the  skin  of  the  tip  of  his 
ear.  The  farmer,  highly  delighted  to  have  come 
so  near  his  aim,  bought  some  more  sticks  from  the 
showman's  wife,  who  looked  a  little  uneasy  and 
disinclined  to  give  them  to  him,  and  he  then 
began  a  new  policy  of  lobbing  them  up  into  the 
air  so  that  they  might  drop  on  the  man  at  the 
other  side  of  the  figures.  At  this  the  showman 
twisted  his  face  into  more  exaggerated  con- 
tortions than  ever.  Putting  his  thumbs  into  the 
arm-holes  of  his  waistcoat  and  getting  down  into 
a  sitting  posture,  he  hopped  in  and  out  among 
the  figures  like  a  dancing  dog.  The  farmer,  with 
a  childish  laugh,  stepped  over  the  cord,  and  he, 
too,  got  into  a  sitting  posture  and  hopped  like  a 
dancing  dog  towards  his  enemy,  his  coat-tails 
dragging  on  the  grass.  The  showman  hopped 
towards  him,  grinning,  and  put  his  hands  above 
his  ears  like  the  horns  of  a  cow  and  wagged  them. 
The  farmer,  with  a  drunken  imitation  of  the 
other's  grin,  also  gave  himself  a  pair  of  horns  or 
donkey's  ears — or  whatever  his  hands  were  meant 
to  represent — and  wagged  them.  In  this  way, 
they  hopped,  one  hop  at  a  time,  round  and  round 
each  other,  till  the  farmer  took  the  showman's 


GAL  WAY  OF  THE  RACES  47 

hat  off,  as  though  he  were  doing  a  funny  thing, 
and  the  showman  took  the  farmer's  hat  off,  as 
though  he  were  doing  a  funnier  thing  still.  After 
this,  the  farmer  got  excited,  and  it  was  time  for 
the  friends  of  both  parties  to  step  in  and  prevent 
a  quarrel. 

When  we  came  away,  they  were  both  standing 
in  the  middle  of  a  clutching  crowd,  the  farmer 
gesticulating  wildly  and  the  showman  parodying 
each  excited  gesture  in  an  extravagant  way  that 
amused  everybody  but  the  farmer,  who  was 
certainly  hard  to  please. 

By  this  time  most  of  the  crowd  were  straggling 
back  to  various  points  beside  the  course  in  order 
to  see  the  race  for  the  Galway  Plate,  which  is, 
I  believe,  the  great  race  of  the  meeting.  Priests 
in  their  rook-black  garments  moved  among 
peasants  in  their  grey  tail-coats  or  white  woollen 
jackets — bawneens,  as  they  are  called — and  horsey 
men  in  leather  gaiters  hurried  with  whisky-bitten 
faces  past  slow-moving  country-women  in  heavy 
grey  and  brown  shawls.  Ordinary  people  like 
you  and  me  made  for  our  places,  a  many- 
coloured  mob  in  all  sorts  of  overcoats  and  serges 
and  tweeds  and  bowlers  and  straw  hats  and  slouch 
hats  and  caps.  We  gathered  in  knots  on  every 
little  prominence  on  the  hillside,  and  got  our 
foreheads  tight  up  against  the  high  bars  of  the 
railings,  or  hung  and  hustled  on  the  backs  of  those 
who  had  in  good  time  seized  the  front  places 


48  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

near  where  the  bookies  bellowed.  Here  men, 
women,  and  children  now  darted  in  every  direction 
and  cross-direction,  like  flies  in  the  sun,  one  to 
lay  a  bet,  another  to  whistle  and  push  after  a 
friend,  another  to  get  a  place.  The  bookies 
were  once  more  screaming  like  seagulls.  The  big 
round-whiskered  man  with  the  crimson  face  and 
the  check  trousers  alone  did  not  seem  to  have 
redoubled  the  vehemence  and  shrillness  of  his 
shouting.  It  was  not  for  want  of  will,  however. 
He  was  still  apoplectically  offering  odds  with  a 
facial  earnestness  worthy  of  a  better  cause.  He 
was  redder  than  ever  and,  as  he  addressed  the 
crowd,  he  kept  clenching  and  swinging  his  fist  in  an 
angry  gesture  of  helplessness.  But,  struggle  as  he 
might,  he  no  longer  brought  forth  a  huge  moun- 
tain of  a  voice  as  he  had  done  earlier  in  the  day. 
His  "  I'll  take  six  to  four  !  I'll  take  six  to  four  !  " 
had  dwindled  into  a  little  hoarse  husky  squeaking 
mouse.  You  saw  it  rather  than  heard  it  as  it 
issued  from  that  labouring,  perspiring,  check- 
breeched  frame.  "  I'll  take  six  to  four  !  I'll 
take  six  to  four  !  "  It  was  like  a  whisper,  a 
death-bed  saying,  a  strangled  confession.  No 
one,  having  seen  the  slow  martyrdom  of  the  man, 
could  ever  afterwards  look  on  bookmaking  as  an 
idle  trade.  The  other  bookmakers,  however, 
hurled  a  stormy  sea  of  voices  about  us  to  make 
up  for  the  soundlessness  of  this  one.  Beggars, 
slipping  through  the  clamour  and  bustle,  would 


GAL  WAY  OF  THE  RACES  49 

beg  you  for  a  penny  for  the  love  of  God,  and 
fruit-sellers  still  sought  a  market  for  their  plums 
and  oranges  with  modest  voices.  One  of  the 
beggars  in  especial,  a  woman  with  Gorgon  locks 
of  iron-grey  hair  flaunting  on  a  head  that  had  once 
been  black  as  night,  made  herself  noticeable. 
Her  shoulders  covered  with  a  brown  Galway 
shawl,  she  had  a  hard  though  beautiful  face  and 
the  evil  eye  of  the  insane.  Her  skin  was  yellowish- 
brown  and  weather-softened.  As  she  begged, 
she  had  a  voice  as  gentle  as  the  light  in  a  church, 
and  it  was  as  good  as  being  in  church  to  hear  her 
mingling  her  thanks  with  holy  names.  But  a 
gauche  big  farmer's  son  in  a  white  coat,  with 
a  party  of  two  young  women  and  a  boy  watching 
the  races  from  a  car,  had  strode  past  her  roughly 
on  his  way  to  a  shouting  bookmaker's,  and  had 
answered  her  without  manners  as  he  pushed  his 
way  back  past  her  insistent  "  I  ask  your  honour 
in  the  name  of  God  to  help  a  poor  woman."  I 
do  not  know  what  he  grunted  at  her  under  his 
ill-tempered  moustache,  but  it  brought  the  evil 
out  in  her  face  very  markedly,  and  she  began  to 
abuse  him  in  many  words  I  do  not  remember  and 
many  others  I  dare  not  print.  It  was  the  very 
pollution  of  a  disordered  mind  that  she  poured 
over  him  as  he  stood  sheepishly  and  resentfully 
at  the  side  of  the  car  and  damned  her  into  himself 
and  said  nothing.  Crooking  two  of  her  fingers, 
she  put  them  into  her  mouth  and  cast  a  spittle 
4 


50  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

at  him  with  a  gesture,  cursing  him,  turning  a 
tributary  stream  of  abuse  on  "the  lady  on  the  car," 
and  winding  up  with  shrieking  what  seemed  to 
be  either  an  accusation  or  a  prophecy  of  grossly 
immoral  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  young  farmer. 
Luckily,  the  bookies  were  making  such  a  noise 
that  you  couldn't  have  heard  all  that  was  going 
on  unless  you  had  had  a  thousand  ears.  Even  so, 
when  the  woman  moved  away  from  her  victim, 
muttering  and  shouting  by  turns,  and  came  up 
against  me,  and  asked  me  in  a  gentle  voice  for  a 
penny,  I  consulted  my  safety  and  bought  her 
silence.  It  only  encouraged  her,  however.  She 
began  to  praise  my  personal  appearance  loudly, 
in  the  most  embarrassing  way,  and  then  she  began 
to  praise  the  personal  appearance  of  my  companion 
too.  She  shrieked  out  a  most  damaging  compari- 
son, on  the  score  both  of  good  looks  and  generosity, 
between  the  young  farmer  and  his  friend  on  the 
one  hand  and  my  companion  and  me  on  the 
other.  I  confess  I  am  as  greedy  of  flattery  as  any 
man  living,  but  this  witch  was  not  using  the  other 
man  as  a  pedestal  for  me  :  she  was  using  me  as  a 
knobby  stick  for  the  other  man.  I  was  rejoiced 
when  the  horses  in  the  big  race  came  out  on  the 
course  and  were  the  signal  for  a  feverish  up- 
roar among  the  bookmakers,  who  were  ravenous 
for  the  last  bets  before  the  horses  started.  So 
many  things  were  being  growled,  shouted,  whanged 
and  husked  at  this  time,  that  you  could  hear  none 


GAL  WAY  OF  THE  RACES  51 

of  them  distinctly  at  all.  Amid  the  noise  and 
shock  of  the  cavalcades  of  shouting,  the  crimson- 
faced  man  in  the  check  trousers  could  no  longer 
be  heard  even  as  a  whisper.  He  was  now  simply 
an  inflammation  and  a  death-rattle. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  the  race  that 
followed,  because  it  did  not  mean  anything  to 
me.  There  were  about  a  dozen  horses  in  it,  and, 
as  to  which  was  which,  before  I  would  have  been 
able  to  learn  the  marks  and  the  jockey-colours 
of  half  of  them,  the  race  could  have  been  run 
twice  over.  The  only  way  in  which  I  have  ever 
been  able  to  get  any  plan  or  sense  in  a  race  is  to 
back  some  one  horse  and  to  follow  its  fortunes 
single-mindedly  till  the  winning-post  is  reached. 
It  is  only  by  doing  this  that  I  have  ever  been  able 
to  appreciate  the  logic  as  opposed  to  the  aesthetics 
of  horse-racing.  As  I  was  an  observer,  not  a 
gambler,  at  the  Galway  races,  I  missed  this 
interest.  The  race  was  to  me  simply  like  the 
bolting  of  a  number  of  horses  with  curiously- 
coloured  boys  on  their  backs. 

Ah  no.  That  is  not  quite  true.  I  loved  the 
beating  of  the  ground  under  their  hoofs  as  they 
swept  past  from  the  starting-place.  I  was  excited 
enough  a  minute  later,  when  one  of  the  curiously- 
coloured  boys  lost  his  seat  and  tumbled  to  the 
ground  with  a  skelter  of  hoofs  flying  away  from 
him.  I  was  sick  with  alarm  as  half  a  dozen  men 
ran  out  and  gathered  the  boy  up  and  half  carried 


52  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

him,  half  helped  him  to  limp,  towards  the  grand- 
stand. "  They  say  he's  never  sober,"  I  heard  a 
voice  beside  me  commenting.  "  He's  destroying 
himself  with  drink,"  said  another  contemptuously. 
"  Divil  the  smarter  jockey  in  Ireland,"  con- 
tinued the  chorus,  "  if  he  could  keep  off  the 
drink."  When  the  jockey  had  been  taken  into 
the  enclosure  and  the  gates  shut  after  him,  and 
we  could  turn  our  attention  to  the  race  again,  his 
horse,  rid  of  its  burden,  had  dashed  in  front  of  its 
rivals,  and  was  leading  the  way  nobly.  Whoop,  it 
was  over  a  fence,  and  galloping  like  a  hare  towards 
the  next  jump.  One  by  one  the  others  rose  and 
fell  in  its  wake,  up  and  down  like  little  dark,  silent 
waves,  and  off  at  the  gallop  after  their  riderless 
leader.  People  began  to  jeer,  to  cheer.  Was  it 
going  to  finish  the  course  by  itself  and  come 
in  first  in  the  race  ?  Another  hurdle  was  leapt. 
Then,  before  it  had  galloped  much  farther,  the 
horse  seemed  to  question  itself.  It  broke  into  a 
trot ;  it  looked  about  it  ;  it  turned  ;  it  questioned 
the  world.  It  began  quietly  to  trot  back  in 
the  direction  from  which  it  had  come,  till  some 
one  ran  out,  caught  it  by  the  bridle,  and  led  it 
back  to  the  stable. 

As  for  the  other  horses,  they  bounded  past  us 
this  time  with  a  fiercer  thunder,  the  race  being 
twice  round  the  course.  It  was  then  a  case  of 
Amber  Dick  and  PoUyooUey  getting  ahead  of  the 
rest,  and  tugging  turn  by  turn  into  the  first  place, 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  53 

like  squalls  overtaking  each  other  on  a  rough 
sea.  Or  you  might  compare  Amber  Dick,  as  he 
shot  ahead,  to  a  wave's  tongue  darting  up  the 
strand.  And  you  might  think  of  PoUyooUey  as 
sweeping  after  him  remorselessly  like  an  argument 
that  is  better  than  another.  The  one  took 
his  jumps,  clawed  up  like  a  crab  ;  the  other, 
sprawling.  They  were  only  the  same  in  hanging 
on  to  each  other's  breaths  breathlessly,  down  the 
slopes,  along  the  levels  and  up  the  hills.  Then 
they  disappeared  round  a  corner,  a  clump  of  seven 
other  horses  rolling  at  their  heels.  When  next 
they  came  into  view  they  were  making  straight 
for  the  winning-post,  and  the  excited  elements 
of  the  crowd  had  poured  like  a  sudden  froth  out 
of  the  enclosure,  out  of  the  stand,  and  over  the 
bar  to  meet  them.  They  were  like  an  advance- 
guard  of  ancient  Britons  rushing  out  wildly  to 
challenge  a  Roman  legion.  They  were  shouting, 
waving  hats,  standing  on  one  foot,  cramping  up 
their  bodies  as  though  the  straining  of  their 
sinews  could  give  speed  to  their  favourites.  They 
had  their  arms  in  the  air  ;  they  had  their  mouths 
open,  yelling.  One  of  them,  a  cane  in  one  hand 
and  a  bowler  hat  in  the  other,  had  his  arms 
stretched  out  to  their  full  extent,  and  beat  a  kind 
of  frenzied  time  with  them  like  the  leader  of 
an  orchestra.  If  frogs  exercised  with  dumb-bells, 
they  might,  I  imagine,  go  through  some  of  the 
same  sawing,  circling,  and  squatting  movements 


54  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

as  did  this  young  man's  arms  and  body.  Then 
suddenly  his  hat  was  flung  high,  and  he  was  lashing 
the  ground  with  his  stick,  as  a  shrill  shout  went 
up  into  the  air  and  drove  all  the  larks  helter- 
skelter  half  a  county  away.  It  was  a  roar  as  from 
a  relieved  city.  Amber  Dick  had  won,  and  amid 
disconsolate  jockeys,  sweating  horses,  and  tem- 
pestuous friends,  was  mobbed,  gravely  pacing  to 
his  stable. 

Then  began  the  rush  to  the  bookmakers  for 
payment  of  debts,  and  the  hurry  across  the  fields 
to  where  two  dusty  cavalcades  of  vehicles  were 
preparing  to  take  us  back  along  either  of  the  rocky 
roads  to  Galway  at  a  considerable  reduction  on 
the  fare  for  the  outward  journey. 

Car  swung  after  car  down  the  ruts  in  white 
clouds,  and  brake  thundered  slow  thunder  after 
brake,  while  ragged  children  stood  in  the  ditches 
and  cheered  us  as  we  went  by.  It  would  be  in 
keeping  with  the  traditional  accounts  of  such 
occasions  if  I  described  the  procession  bolting 
down  the  road  to  Galway  at  breakneck  speed,  but 
it  would  not  be  true.  The  cars  did  not  drive 
particularly  fast  for  Irish  cars.  They  jolted 
along  at  an  honest  pace  enough,  and  if  any  of  the 
horses  were  apt  to  stumble,  it  must  have  been 
through  weariness  or  age,  not  through  reckless 
driving. 

We  were  in  the  advance-guard  of  those  who  got 
back  to  the  town.     Most  of  the  people  seemed  to 


THE    SPORTSMEN. 
Draivn  and  coloured  hy  Jack  -fi.    Tdits. 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  55 

be  staying  for  the  last  race,  and,  if  we  hurried 
away,  it  was  only  because  we  loved  food  more  and 
sport  less  than  the  vast  majority  of  the  men  and 
women  who  went  to  the  races  on  the  hillside. 
When  we  got  back  to  the  hotel,  a  squinting 
woman  with  a  handkerchief  round  her  head  and 
with  a  bulging  wet  sack  lying  on  the  ground  at 
her  feet  was  beginning  a  heated  argument  with 
the  landlord.  It  seemed  that  she  had  sold  a 
two-stone  bag  of  cockles  to  an  English  visitor  at 
the  hotel,  who,  having  indulged  a  little  too  freely 
in  the  wine  of  the  country,  had  flushed  into  a 
generous  mood  and  had  bought  the  entire  sack 
from  her.  This  done,  however,  he  had  bumped 
precipitately  up  the  stairs  to  bed,  leaving  her 
to  store  the  cockles  where  she  could.  She,  of 
course,  was  for  setting  them  down  in  the  hall 
of  the  hotel.  But  the  landlord,  rightly  surmising 
that  an  Englishman  sober  might  have  some  diffi- 
culty in  finding  a  use  for  an  enormous  load  of 
cockles  that  he  had  bought  when  drunk,  sent  her 
off  to  the  railway  station,  advising  her  to  put  the 
sack  in  the  gentleman's  name  in  the  left-luggage 
office.  She  trudged  off,  sickle-shaped  under  her 
dank  load,  but  apparently  the  clerk  in  the  station 
eyed  her  load  with  the  same  suspicion  as  the  land- 
lord, for  ten  minutes  later  she  was  back  at  the 
hotel,  a  trader  doing  her  best  under  difficulties 
to  deal  honestly  by  a  client. 

"  Well,  would  he  not  take  them  ?  "  said  the 


56  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

landlord  in  apparent  surprise  as  the  cockles  were 
once  more  flung  on  his  doorstep. 

"  It's  perishable  goods  he  says  they  are,"  replied 
the  woman  in  the  high  voice  of  a  fishwife.  "  It's 
no  use,  sir,  I'll  have  to  leave  them  here.  There's 
no  other  way  out  of  it." 

"  And  what — what  reason  did  he  give  for 
refusing  to  take  in  the  cockles  ?  "  asked  the 
landlord,  dumbfounded  by  the  railway  company's 
insolence. 

"Amn't  I  after  telling  you,"  retorted  the 
woman,  "  that  he  said  cockles  was  perishable 
goods  ?  '  It's  no  use,'  says  he,  and  he  seemed 
to  think  it  was  trying  to  play  a  trick  on  him  I 
was.  '  I'm  not  going  to  have  them  here,'  says  he, 
'  for  to  go  bad  on  me  and  raise  the  divil's  own  smell 
through  the  whole  station.'  An'  that's  the  way 
it  is,  your  honour.  If  I  can't  leave  them  here, 
I  don't  know  what  to  do.  Ah,  now,  there's  room 
plenty  in  the  hotel,"  she  went  on,  picking  the 
bag  up  and  making  towards  the  door  with  it. 

"  Wait,  wait !  "  cried  the  landlord,  putting  up 
his  hand.  He  looked  back  along  the  hall  and  up 
the  stairs  as  though  half  expecting  to  see  help 
coming  from  that  quarter.  "  I  don't  know, 
I'm  sure,"  he  muttered.  Then,  half  to  himself 
and  half  confiding  to  me  :  "  It's  an  English 
gentleman,"  he  said,  *'  who  has  come  to  Galway 
for  to  see  the  races.  The  fact  is,  he  has  been 
enjoying  himself — ^he  has — he's  a  little  bit  fresh. 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  57 

I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  make  up  whatever  he 
bought  these  cockles  for.  Maybe  it's  a  taste  for 
cockles  he  has — for  by  all  accounts  they  have  a 
taste  for  a  strange  lot  of  things  in  England  that 
we  wouldn't  put  up  with  in  Ireland — or  maybe 
he'll  have  forgotten  all  about  it  by  the  time  he 
wakes  up,  and  then  I'll  have  to  get  a  young  lad  to 
carry  the  stuff  off  the  Lord  knows  where,  for 
it's  not  so  easy  as  you  might  think  to  get  rid  of  a 
sack  of  cockles  that  would  be  going  worse  every 
minute." 

"  It  was  a  fair  purchase,"  the  woman  broke  in 
shrilly.  "  Call  the  gentleman  out  and  ask  him 
wasn't  it  a  fair  purchase." 

The  landlord  took  a  step  or  two  out,  and  looked 
up  into  the  blue  sky  where  wings  of  cloud  were 
gathering. 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you,"  said  he,  with  his  eye  on  the 
clouds,  "  that  the  gentleman  required  a  little 
rest  after  his  long  journey  ?  " 

"  Ah,  well,"  observed  the  woman  resignedly, 
"  he  paid  for  the  cockles  anyway,  and  I'll  leave 
them  here  for  him."  And  she  flung  them  against 
the  wall  of  the  hotel.  "  I'm  tired  looking  at 
them,"  she  said. 

The  landlord  was  an  obliging  man  and  capi- 
tulated on  terms.  If  the  woman  would  carry  the 
cockles  inside,  and  leave  them  at  the  back  of  the 
kitchen  door,  he  would  see  what  could  be  done. 
So  we  made  way,  and  the  woman  once  more  took 


58  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

up  her  wet  burden,  and  dragged  it  up  the  step 
and  down  the  hall  and  out  of  sight.  And  what 
the  last  end  of  those  cockles  was  I  do  not  know 
under  heaven  till  the  present  day. 

Soon,  cars  and  brakes  were  unloading  themselves 
all  around  us,  and  young  men  and  maidens  were 
promising  to  see  each  other  again  at  some  church 
bazaar,  announcements  of  which  were  swinging 
on  scrolls  across  the  streets.  For  ourselves,  we 
decided,  when  we  had  had  a  heteroclite  meal,  to 
go  out  on  the  tram  to  Salthill- — the  watering- 
place  suburb  which  lies  about  two  miles  along  the 
north  side  of  Galway  Bay.  It  was  not  an  easy 
job  to  get  on  to  the  cars,  however.  Everybody 
who  was  not  going  to  the  bazaar  or  going  home 
was  going  to  Salthill.  Each  tram  as  it  came  up 
was  seized  by  a  lawless  crowd,  and,  though  there 
was  a  great  notice  in  the  windows, — in  order  to 

PREVENT  OVERCROWDING  IN  THESE  TRAMS,  WHICH 
IS  CONTRARY  TO  LAW,  DURING  THE  GALWAY  RACES 
THERE  WILL  BE  NO  FARE  LESS  THAN   3D.  BY  ORDER, 

everybody  took  for  granted  that  the  tramway 
company  was  only  putting  up  its  prices  like  all  the 
other  concerns  in  the  town  as  a  matter  of  good 
business,  and  we  broke  the  law  in  such  regiments 
that  it  is  a  wonder  we  did  not  break  the  horses' 
backs  too. 

In  Salthill  itself,  when  you  get  there,  there  is 
little  to  do.  There  are  new  stuccoed  houses  in 
it  and  a  long  cement  walk  above  the  sea  where  the 


GALWAY  OF  THE  RACES  59 

wind   can   blow  mighty  cold   after   the  sun  has 
gone  down.     The  chief  distinction  of  the  place 
is  the  number  of  old  women  who  sit  out  under  the 
gable-ends  of  some  of  the  houses  in  companies. 
They  look  like  some  scene  of  Dutch  life  as  they 
take  the  evening  air  in  their  wealth  of  petticoats  and 
dark  knitted  shawls,  sewing,  talking,  getting  amuse- 
ment out  of  some  broken-down  singer  who  pauses 
to  sing  them  inappropriate  songs.     These  clumps 
of  old  people  are,  I  believe,  not  residents,  but 
country  folk  who   come   from   all   parts   to  get 
health    from   the   waters    and   the   briny   air    of 
Salthill.     I  do  not  know  whether  Salthill  is  now 
the  resort  of  all  classes  to  the  extent  to  which 
it  used  to  be,  but  the  poor  still  seem  to  flock  to  it. 
Miss  Callwell,in  Old  Irish  Life,  tells  of  the  martyr- 
doms that  used  to  be  undergone  in  order  that  the 
ailing  poor   might   be   brought   to   this   health- 
giving    shore.     "  One    poor    man,"    she    writes, 
"  carried  his  wife,   who  was  recovering  from  a 
severe  illness,  nearly  fifty  miles  upon  his  back, 
to  bring  her  to  the  sea,  supporting  her  and  the 
children    who    accompanied    them    by    begging 
from    house    to   house    along    the    road.     '  Och, 
but  he  dearly  earned  me,'  said  the  wife  afterwards, 
when   happily   she   was   restored   to   health    and 
strength,"     Salthill  looks  as  though  to  some  of 
its  pilgrims  such  heroisms  were  still  possible.  .  .  . 
It  was  wet  and  windy  enough  that  night  to  kill 
anybody  but  a  confirmed  invalid.  .  .  .  We  crowded 


6o  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

inside  the  tram  on  our  way  home.  A  man  at  the 
far  end  became  violent  against  the  conductor, 
who  wanted  to  prevent  him  from  smoking  his 
pipe.  The  conductor  was  young  and  nervous, 
as  well  as  officious,  and  gave  in.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  PATH  TO  CONG 

The  second  day  of  the  races  was  in  a  sense  a 
wasted  day.  It  was  a  day  on  which  we  tried 
hard  to  get  to  Cong,  and  we  did  not  succeed  in 
getting  to  Cong.  According  to  the  railway- 
guides,  a  steamer  left  Galway  for  Cong  every 
afternoon  some  time  about  three  o'clock,  so  we 
dawdled  away  the  morning  looking  over  bridges 
and  sauntering  past  the  Claddagh,  that  ancient 
thatched  village  of  fishermen  about  whose  suc- 
cession of  kings  all  the  world  has  heard,  and 
revisiting  the  old  streets  of  grey  steep  houses  — 
idling  cheerfully,  in  fact,  till  three  o'clock  should 
come  round.  It  was  difficult  to  find  any  in- 
habitant of  Galway  who  had  ever  been  to  Cong 
or  who  knew  where  the  Cong  boat  started  from. 
There  was  a  small  boy  in  the  hotel,  however, 
who  knew  all  about  it  and  who  arranged  to  take 
our  luggage  to  the  boat  on  a  wheelbarrow  in 
good  time.  Consequently,  we  settled  ourselves 
down  to  contentment,  taking  a  long  noon's 
enjoyment  out  of  the  dusty  and  deserted  town. 

6i 


62  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Practically  everybody  else  had  gone  to  the 
races  again.  We  did  not  dare.  As  I  have  said, 
it  was  our  one  purpose  in  life  to  catch  that  three- 
o'clock  boat  to  Cong. 

It  was  about  half  an  hour  before  the  boat  was 
due  to  start  that  we  set  off  from  the  hotel  ac- 
companied by  a  small  boy  wheeling  a  great  load 
of  bags  on  a  barrow.  It  was  only  a  step  to  the 
river.  There  was  no  sign  of  life  when  we  came 
within  view  of  it.  It  lay  still  as  a  deserted  lake 
in  the  palace  grounds  of  some  sleeping  beauty. 
Rather  it  moved  stilly  on  its  way  to  the  weir, 
after  which,  no  doubt,  it  plunged  and  gushed 
like  a  young  thing  towards  the  sea. 

The  only  trace  of  man  to  be  seen  was  a  distant 
high-kneed  figure  lying  back  against  the  white 
wall  of  a  house,  smoking  and  enjoying  the  sun. 
As  we  passed  on  our  way  to  the  landing-stage  for 
the  Cong  boat,  this  figure  suddenly  busied  itself 
to  its  feet  and  hailed  us  across  a  little  quad- 
rangular inlet  of  water. 

At  first  we  could  not  hear  what  the  man  said  : 
he  was  simply  a  vain  shout  and  a  pipe  waved 
vigorously  in  the  air.  Then  we  caught  the 
words — 

"  Are  yous  for  the  boat  ?  " 

We  told  him  we  were. 

"  There'll  be  no  boat  to-day,"  he  told  us. 
"  There's  no  boat  leaves  here  till  to-morrow." 

We  refused  to  believe  such  a  thing  after  all 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  63 

those  hours  of  waiting  and  with  the  barrow  of 
luggage  beside  us.  What  was  the  matter  ?  we 
asked  him. 

"  The  captain's  gone  to  the  races,"  he  called 
back,  "  and  there'll  be  no  boat  leave  here  till 
to-morrow." 

We  protested  that  no  public  announcement 
of  this  earth-shaking  change  had  been  made  in 
the  time-table  of  the  Cong  steamer. 

"  Well,"  declared  the  man,  who  had  evidently 
no  sympathy  with  our  indignation,  "  they  always 
stop  work  for  the  races.  You'll  see  wonders  if 
ever  you  see  the  Cong  boat  leaving  and  the  races 
going  on." 

In  case  the  man  with  the  pipe  might  be  suffering 
from  hallucination,  we  bade  the  boy  wheel  the 
barrow  on  as  far  as  the  landing-stage,  where  a 
sort  of  a  tug  was  lying  as  if  awaiting  the  last 
trump.  One  could  go  aboard  her  and  walk  up 
and  down  and  shout  down  every  hole  or  hatchway, 
but  there  was  not  even  an  echo  of  response.  It 
was  as  eerie  as  examining  a  derelict.  It  was  no 
occasion  for  artistic  emotions,  however.  With 
the  feelings  that  most  people  translate  into  oaths 
we  turned  and  marched  back  with  the  small  boy 
and  the  wheelbarrow  to  the  hotel. 

I  felt  in  the  mood  for  writing  a  pamphlet.  It 
would  have  traced  back  the  inertia  of  the  Cong 
boat  during  the  race-meeting  to  Strongbow's 
invasion  of  Ireland.     Here,  I  told  myself,  was  the 


64  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

culminating  incident  of  seven  hundred  years' 
disorganisation  of  national  habits  and  culture. 
For  the  successors  of  Strongbow  were  able  almost 
to  destroy  a  civilisation  in  Ireland,  but  they 
never  were  able  to  build  a  new  one  in  its  place. 
Event  followed  event  in  confirmation  of  the  theory 
elucidated  in  that  unwritten  pamphlet.  First, 
when  we  went  to  the  railway  station  to  make 
inquiries  about  other  ways  of  reaching  Cong, 
we  were  told  that  the  only  way  we  could  get 
there  even  by  the  early  part  of  the  next  day 
was  to  take  a  train  away  back  into  the  heart 
of  Ireland  to  Athlone,  then  to  take  another 
train  up  towards  Roscommon,  to  change  some- 
where into  yet  another  train  for  Ballinrobe, 
where  we  would  arrive  in  time  for  bed,  and  from 
which  we  could  take  a  car  to  Cong  the  next 
morning.  It  was  an  extravagant  way  of  getting  at 
Cong,  but  we  were  desperate.  We  had  by  now 
developed  a  passion  for  reaching  Cong  which 
would  not  be  gainsaid.  So  we  bade  the  girl  at  the 
booking-office  write  out  our  tickets.  The  guard 
examined  them  before  the  train  left  and  at  once 
informed  us  that  we  were  going  on  an  un- 
necessarily roundabout  journey.  Why  hadn't 
we  booked  via  Athenry  to  Ballinrobe — which 
was  very  much  shorter  and  cheaper  ? 

I  felt  that  the  girl  in  the  booking-ofiice,  who 
had  told  us  that  the  only  way  to  Ballinrobe  that 
evening  was  by  Athlone,  was  a  serpent.     I  dared 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  65 

not  leave  my  seat  to  tell  her  so,  however.  If  I 
had,  the  train  would  have  gone  on  without  me. 
When  we  were  getting  near  Athenry,  I  suggested 
to  a  ticket  collector  that  we  might  change  at 
Athenry  and  go  to  Ballinrobe  by  the  rational  way, 
but  he  assured  us  that,  if  we  did,  we  would  have 
to  get  new  tickets,  and  pay  extra,  for  a  different 
company  owned  that  part  of  the  line.  I  have 
always  believed  in  the  nationalisation  of  the 
Irish  railways,  but  never  quite  so  fiercely  as  at 
that  moment.  I  sat  in  the  train,  indeed,  and 
damned  private  property  in  railways  till  I  began  to 
feel  quite  cheerful  again.  "  Oh  for  one  hour  of 
Sidney  Webb  !  "  I  cried  to  the  stones  in  the  fields. 
But  perhaps  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  is  better  still. 
He  stands  above  all  for  organisation,  whether  it 
is  organisation  of  business  or  organisation  of  social 
life.  And  it  is  exactly  organisation  that  foreign 
influence  has  killed  in  the  west  of  Ireland.  Senti- 
mental people  are  apt  to  become  enthusiastic 
over  this  disorganisation  when  it  appears  in  the 
life  of  peasants.  It  is  regarded  as  peculiarly 
picturesque  and  Irish.  When  it  expresses  itself 
among  the  middle  classes,  however,  as  bad  business 
and  bad  manners,  we  all  lose  our  tolerance.  .  .  . 
But  it  may  be  that  the  affair  of  the  tickets  made 
me  unusually  resentful  of  that  young  man  with 
the  little  cap  and  the  black  pompom  of  hair  falling 
over  his  lean  face  and  the  abounding  black  bow 
and  the  knickers  and  the  yellow  boots,  who  lit 
5 


66  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

his  race-meeting  cigar  without  asking  any  of  the 
women  in  the  carriage  (which  was  not  a  smoking 
carriage)  if  they  objected. 

There  were  chocolates  at  Athlone,  and  an  old 
bright-eyed  man  with  scanty  white  hair  who 
could  speak  Irish  was  in  the  carriage  on  the  way 
to  Claremorris  with  his  young  wife  and  his 
amazingly  young  child.  He  was  an  old  child 
himself  to  look  at — not  a  patriarch  at  all,  but  a 
happy  child.  Then  there  was  a  ruddy-faced 
conversational  man  in  checks  and  a  dust-coat  who 
got  into  the  train  that  took  us  from  Claremorris 
to  Ballinrobe.  He  had  just  got  back  from  Galway 
races,  and  told  us  how  much  he  had  made  at  them. 
Not  only  this,  but  how  reasonably,  considering 
the  crush,  the  hotel  had  charged  him — how  much 
for  supper,  how  much  for  bed,  how  much  for 
breakfast.  He  brought  out  his  bill  to  show  us 
the  details.  He  was  more  interesting  when  he 
began  to  talk  about  the  industrial  revival  in  that 
part  of  the  country,  and  how  many  thousands 
of  pounds'  worth  of  Irish  homespun  and  friezes 
went  from  factories  in  the  neighbourhood — 
to  Selfridge's,  I  think  it  was.  .  .  . 

Ballinrobe  Station,  when  we  arrived  there, 
seemed  to  be  the  porch  of  the  outer  darkness. 
We  had  been  given  the  name  of  a  hotel,  and, 
when  we  mentioned  it,  a  lean  giant  fell  out  of 
the  darkness  upon  our  luggage  and  marched  us 
off  into  a  night  that  was  without  stars  or  peep 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  6-] 

of  any  lamp.  He  said  the  hotel  wasn't  far  and 
that  there  was  no  horse  at  the  station,  so  off  we 
walked  with  him,  stumbling  in  the  ruts  of  an 
unseen  road,  until  the  sound  of  running  watei 
close  to  us  and  the  murmur  of  trees  stirring 
overhead  made  us  wonder  if  we  were  not  being 
conducted  on  some  fearful  errand  to  a  castle  in 
the  heart  of  a  bloody  wood.  Suddenly,  however, 
a  gate  was  dashed  backwards,  and  we  were  passing 
through  a  dimly  lit  hall  into  a  room  adorned 
with  huge  imitation  fishes  in  glass  cases  and  all 
the  other  symbols  of  a  hotel  for  anglers. 

Here  was  quietness  and  even  luxury  after 
Galway.  Here  was  the  silence  of  comfort,  not 
the  silence  of  desolation.  ...  If  I  were  a 
fisherman,  I  should  certainly  find  my  way  back 
to  Ballinrobe  and  the  hotels  for  anglers  in  that 
part  of  the  world.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
nonsense  talked  about  the  discomforts  and  bad 
cooking  of  the  hotels  of  Ireland.  The  worst 
Irish  hotels,  of  course,  are  adventures  in  the 
unspeakable.  But  then  the  worst  are  very  rare, 
and  they  are  seldom  to  be  found,  so  far  as  my 
experience  can  be  trusted,  in  the  fishing  districts. 

Ballinrobe,  indeed,  is  a  fine  bright  town,  as 
we  discovered  the  next  morning  when,  having 
deliberately  missed  the  early  morning  mail-car 
to  Cong,  we  strolled  out  in  its  sunny  streets  with 
their  pleasant  house-fronts  washed  in  manycolours. 
Not  that  there  are  not  banks  and  other  worthy 


68  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

institutions  to  dignify  the  place,  but  the  occa- 
sional house-fronts  that,  instead  of  being  white- 
washed, are  yellow- washed  or  blue -washed, 
seemed  to  me  to  give  it  its  distinctive  note.  It 
looks  prosperous  enough,  but,  like  most  Irish 
towns,  it  is  only  a  relic  of  its  old  self.  I  see  from 
a  guide-book  that  it  has  now  1544  inhabitants. 
Lewis's  Topographical  Dictionary  of  Ireland, 
which  was  published  in  1851,  gave  the  population 
at  that  time  as  2604.  That  is  a  measure  of  the 
way  in  which  the  towns  of  Ireland  have  managed 
to  progress  backwards  under  the  Union. 

It  was  a  muscular  man  with  cheeks  as  red  as  a 
lobster  and  hair  cropped  close  to  the  skull  who 
came  to  drive  us  to  Cong.  He  was  a  dark  man, 
and  his  Adam's  apple  hung  like  a  dewlap  under 
his  blazing  face.  He  wore  a  peaked  cap  down  on 
his  over-white  eyes,  and  his  wide  mouth  curved  in 
obliging,  if  somewhat  cynical,  smiles.  More  than 
middle-aged,  he  had  seen  the  world  and  could  not 
help  feeling  discontented  at  the  fate  which  had 
ended  in  making  him  a  jarvey  among  these  fields  of 
slumber.  As  he  drove,  he  kept  spitting  into  his 
hands  each  time  he  gave  a  tug  at  the  reins,  and 
shaking  his  head  over  the  condition  of  Ireland. 

Out  on  the  high  road  our  car  sailed  along,  a 
fly  in  the  sun,  and  gave  us  every  moment  a  larger 
view  of  the  bluebell-coloured  mountains  piled 
up  in  beauty  on  the  far  side  of  Lough  Mask.  It 
was  a  country  to  evoke  enthusiasm,  but  the  driver, 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  69 

spitting  vigorously  into  his  hands,  did  not  find 
it  so. 

"  There's  a  heap  of  money  going  about,"  he 
declared,  with  a  wink  which  was  half  a  grimace, 
as  he  offered  his  personal  diagnosis  of  the  condition 
of  Ireland — "  a  heap  of  money  that  nobody  knows 
where  it  comes  from.  Did  you  ever  read  any 
Irish  history,  sir  ?  I've  often  heard  them  tell 
the  story  that  seven  or  eight  hundred  years  ago 
the  English  Queen  Elizabeth  sent  over  one  of  her 
biggest  generals  to  this  part  of  Ireland  to  bate 
the  Irish.  But  the  Irish  were  the  best  soldiers 
in  the  world  then,  and,  good  and  all  as  he  was,  the 
Englishman  could  do  nothing  against  them,  and 
they  slewed  him.  Well,  that  makes  Elizabeth 
angry,  and  she  sends  over  her  next  best  general,  and 
they  slewed  him.  And  the  next  best  after  that, 
and  they  slewed  him,  till  in  the  end  of  the  story 
the  Queen  says  till  herself,  says  she  :  '  It's  no 
use.  England's  done,'  says  she.  '  We  may  as 
well  admit  we're  bet.'  With  that,  the  cleverest 
Englishman  that  was  living  at  that  time 
ups  and  says  he  can  tell  the  Queen  a  most 
potient  way  for  dealing  with  the  Irish.  '  I  know 
Ireland  well,'  says  he,  *  and  it's  no  use  your  trying 
to  bate  them  at  fair  fighting.  There's  only  one 
way,'  says  he.  '  Let  you  send  me  over  among 
them  with  an  odd  bag  of  gold,'  says  he,  '  and  I'll 
dash  a  bit  of  money  about  amongst  them,  and  see 
if  I  don't  have  them  fighting  like  a  lot  of  game 


70  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

cocks  in  less  than  no  time  !  '  Well,  that  was  the 
first  Englishman  that  ever  knew  how  to  bate  the 
Irish,  and  he  was  made  a  Duke  or  an  Earl  for  it. 
'  Dash  a  bit  of  money  about  amongst  them,'  says 
he,  and  be  damned  if  they  have  been  doing 
anything  else  ever  since." 

I  suggested  that  it  was  robbery,  not  bribery, 
from  which  Ireland  had  suffered  most. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  spitting  rapidly  into  one  hand 
after  the  other,  "  say  what  you  like,  but  there's 
queer  goings-on.  I  tell  you  there's  men  going 
about  here  and  there  all  over  the  County  Mayo, 
and  some  people  gets  money,  and  some  gets  none, 
and  the  money  must  come  from  somewhere.  Oh, 
there'll  be  exposures  one  of  these  days,  sir,"  said 
he,  with  a  leer  of  satisfaction,  "  and  don't  forget 
I  told  you.  There's  money  slipping  from  this 
hand  to  that,  I  tell  you,  this  present  day  just 
the  same  as  ever  there  was." 

Even  the  bluebell-coloured  hills  which  lured  us 
from  beyond  the  low-lying  lake  paled  in  com- 
parison with  this  gorgeous  version  of  Irish  history. 
And  yet,  though  it  had  the  form  of  a  fairy-tale, 
it  had,  like  so  many  fairy-tales,  an  indubitable  soul 
of  fact.  Was  it  not  Bacon  who  commended  the 
"  princely  policy "  of  Elizabeth  in  weakening 
the  Irish  by  "  dividing  the  heads  "  ?  As  for  the 
modern  corruption  of  which  the  driver  spoke, 
I  imagine  he  was  thinking  of  some  spending 
institution  such  as  the  Congested  Districts  Board 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  71 

— one  of  the  Balfourian  inventions  for  killing 
Home  Rule  with  doles.  If  these  were  what  his 
mind  was  in  such  jumbled  revolt  against,  I  agree 
with  him.  Much  good  as  they  have  un- 
questionably done,  they  have  done  it  in  the  way 
which  least  encourages  the  spirit  of  self-reliance 
and  independence  among  the  people.  But  then 
I  think  the  whole  system  which  makes  the  people 
turn  their  eyes  to  London  instead  of  to  themselves 
for  help  is  an  incitement  to  servility. 

Most  people  would  conclude  from  the  driver's 
conversation  that  he  must  be  something  of  an 
extreme  Nationalist.  But  the  truth  is,  he  had  no 
more  politics  than  the  horse,  and  his  phantas- 
magoric beliefs  and  prejudices  were  quite  in- 
dependent of  any  logical  creed.  I  found  this  out 
when  I  asked  him  about  Captain  Boycott,  the 
land-agent  whose  name  gave  a  new  word  to  the 
English  language  thirty  years  ago  owing  to  his 
bad  relations  with  the  tenantry  in  this  neigh- 
bourhood. The  circumstances  of  the  Boycott 
affair  are,  perhaps,  worth  recalling.  Parnell 
had  advised  the  tenant-farmers  at  a  great 
■  meeting  in  Ennis  in  the  summer  of  1880  to 
cease  to  pay  rack-rents  to  the  landlords,  but  to 
offer  them  what  they  thought  was  a  just  rent 
instead.  Captain  Boycott,  who  was  agent  for 
the  Earl  of  Erne,  got  into  some  trouble  with  the 
labourers  and  tenants  at  the  time,  and  took  steps 
to  evict  the  latter  for  their  impudence.     Parnell, 


72  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

however,  in  his  speech  of  a  month  before,  had 
suggested  a  new  method  for  countering  evictions. 
This  was  to  put  into  Coventry,  as  the  English 
say,  any  man  who  "  grabbed  "  or  took  possession 
of  an  evicted  tenant's  farm.  This  system  was 
now  put  in  operation  against  Captain  Boycott. 
His  labourers  fell  away  from  him.  His  servants 
escaped  from  his  house  as  though  he  had  been 
a  leper.  Blacksmiths,  shopkeepers,  washerwomen 
— everybody  suddenly  found  some  excuse  for 
refusing  to  have  any  dealings  with  him,  and  he 
and  the  British  Constitution  were  left  like  two 
little  cockleshells  in  peril  amid  the  tumultuous 
seas  of  agrarian  war.  The  Orangemen  of  the 
north,  who  have  so  often  been  misled  into  be- 
lieving that  the  Irish  of  the  south  and  west  are 
criminals  of  the  rack  and  thumbscrew  order, 
resolved  to  do  battle  for  a  land-agent  who  was  at 
least  a  Protestant,  and  fifty  of  them  boldly  set 
off  to  Mayo  to  gather  in  the  crops  of  Captain 
Boycott,  and  to  raise  the  banner  of  the  Lord 
against  the  idolators  once  more. 

I  confess  I  like  to  think  of  that  little  band  of 
Orangemen.  They  were  as  wrong  as  anybody, 
Protestant  or  Catholic,  who  ever  fought  for 
sectarianism  instead  of  liberty,  but  they  had  at 
least  the  courage  of  their  wrongness.  They  were 
fighting  in  a  lost  cause,  however,  and  though, 
with  the  help  of  an  army  of  police  and  redcoats, 
who     threatened    the     countryside    with    their 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  73 

field-pieces,  they  saved  the  Captain's  crops  to 
the  value  of  ;^35o,  they  did  so  at  a  cost  of  ten 
times  that  amount,  and  Captain  Boycott,  finding 
the  game  not  worth  the  candle,  at  last  packed 
his  trunk  for  England.  It  is  said  to  have  been  the 
local  priest.  Father  John  O'Malley,  who  invented 
the  verb  "  to  boycott  "  as  a  help  to  an  American 
journalist  who  could  think  of  no  word  but  the 
pallid  "  ostracise  "  to  describe  what  was  being 
done  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Lough  Mask. 

"  That  was  a  man  was  never  treated  fair,"  the 
carman  assured  us,  when  we  asked  him  about 
Captain  Boycott's  Castle.  "  There  was  no  justice 
in  the  way  he  was  used  at  all." 

But  he  could  give  no  reasons  for  his  opinion 
except  in  such  vague  phrases  as  that  the  Captain 
was  "  a  nice  gentleman." 

Frankly,  I  think  that  boycotting  is  a  very 
questionable  weapon.  It  is  so  capable  of  abuse 
in  the  hands  of  men  who  have  personal,  not  social, 
ends  to  serve.  But,  before  we  become  self- 
righteous  in  condemning  it,  we  must  remember 
that  Parnell  proposed  it,  not  as  you  propose  a 
desirable  law,  but  as  the  alternative  to  the 
horrors  of  crime  which  make  land  wars  bloody 
like  Imperial  and  religious  and  civil  wars.  Op- 
pression breeds  crime  in  a  normal  human  society 
as  surely  as  filth  breeds  pestilence.  Parnell 
wished  to  reply  to  the  crimes  of  oppression,  not 
with    other    crimes    of   retaliation,    but   with   a 


74  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

militant  trade  union  of  the  Irish  farmers.  Look- 
ing at  the  whole  business  impartially  as  a  piece  of 
history,  we  can  only  say  that  his  methods  were 
successful  and  his  ideals  such  as  most  men  have 
come  to  think  right.  Both  the  English  political 
parties  have  conceded  as  much — the  Liberals  in 
Mr.  Gladstone's  Land  Act  of  1881,  and  the 
Conservatives  in  Mr.  Wyndham's  Land  Act  of 
1903.  Both  of  these  Acts  were  simply  adaptations 
of  the  policy  of  the  Land  League. 

"  I'm  surprised  to  hear  you  praising  Captain 
Boycott  so  much,"  I  said  to  the  driver  at  the 
end  of  his  tirade  of  praise.  "  Do  you  not  think 
Michael  Davitt  was  a  finer  character  ?  " 

"  Ah,  Davitt  was  a  fine  man,  too,"  he  replied. 
"  If  it  wasn't  for  Davitt  where  would  the  poor 
farmer  be  ?  Will  you  tell  me  this — who  has  a 
better  right  to  a  farm  than  the  man  that  farms  it  ? 
And  wasn't  it  Davitt  that  made  it  worth  a 
farmer's  while  to  be  living  at  all  ?  I  tell  you 
what  it  is,  we  need  another  Davitt  badly." 

And  he  proceeded  indignantly  to  relate  how 
some  one  had  refused  to  sell  him  a  small  field  that 
he  wanted  for  his  horse,  and  he  seemed  to  think 
that,  if  Davitt  were  alive,  he  would  bring  in  a 
law  compelling  the  other  man  to  make  the  sale. 

"  And  I  tell  you  who  was  another  fine  man,"  he 
went  on,  nodding  dogmatically  over  his  reins — 
"  Sanders." 

"  Who  was  he  ?  "  I  asked. 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  75 

"  Sanders.  He  was  a  Member  of  Parliament. 
He  was  from  the  north." 

"  You  don't  mean  Colonel  Saunderson,  the 
Orangeman  ?  "  said  I. 

"  That's  the  man,"  he  declared.  "  He  was 
a  fine  man,  that." 

Really,  I  could  not  hope  to  keep  pace  with 
politics  so  elusive  and  swift-footed,  and  I  was 
relieved  when  he  drew  our  attention  to  a  curious 
stone  structure — a  thing  like  a  grandstand  of 
stone  slabs  with  a  sign  or  weathercock  of  some 
sort  on  the  top — standing  behind  the  wall  of 
an  estate. 

"  Do  you  know  what  that  is  ?  "  he  asked  us. 

I  guessed  it  was  some  funeral  monument. 

"  Not  at  all,"  he  said  contemptuously.  "  That's 
where  they  used  to  sit  and  watch  the  cock- 
fighting — ah,  it  would  be  seven  hundred  years 
ago,  maybe."  He  had  a  taste  for  good  stiff 
numbers. 

He  then  began  to  question  us  as  to  our  visit 
to  that  part  of  the  country,  and  lamented  when 
he  heard  that  we  were  the  merest  birds  of  passage. 
If  we  had  been  staying  any  length  of  time,  either 
he  could  have  put  us  up  himself  or  could  have 
introduced  us  into  some  nice  country  cottage  in 
the  district. 

"  The  mistake  everybody  makes,"  he  told  us, 
"  is  going  to  them  robbing  hotels.  Sure,  what 
attraction  is  it  for  visitors  when,  every  time  they 


^e  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

go  to  bed  and  sit  down  to  their  breakfast  it  means 
maybe  half  a  sovereign  or  more  out  of  their 
pockets  ?  That's  a  nice  hotel  you  were  staying 
in,  but  what's  the  use  of  paying  pounds  when 
shillings  would  do.  If  ever  you're  coming  back 
this  way,  sir,  let  you  send  me  a  postcard  and  I'll 
find  you  a  nice  clean  room  where  you  can  have  all 
you  want  for  fifteen  shillings  a  week — there  or 
thereabouts — is  that  too  much,  ma'am  ?  Of 
course,  it  would  be  simple  cooking — a  chicken  or 
a  piece  of  roast-beef,  or  maybe  a  salmon  out  of 
the  lough,  and  an  apple  pie  or  a  rhubarb  pie  to 
follow.  Plain,  simple  cooking,  ma'am,  and  no 
dhrawin'-room  dishes,  but  maybe  you'd  be  better 
without  them." 

And  so  he  flowed  on  and  on  and  on,  shaking  his 
head  and  jigging  the  reins  and  spitting  into  his 
hands,  as  the  car  rattled  us  on  down  towards 
one  of  the  very  capitals  of  Irish  history.  As  we 
came  to  a  modern  stone  gateway  just  outside  the 
entrance  to  the  little  town,  he  turned  round  and 
pointed  his  whip  at  the  place. 

"  Many's  the  stone  you  and  me  helped  to  put 
into  that  wall,  ma'am,"  he  said  with  a  grin. 

"  Oh  ?  "  said  my  companion,  rather  puzzled. 

"  That's  Lord  Ardilaun's  place,"  he  explained, 
enjoying  his  joke — "  him  that  owns  Guinness's 
brewery.  Everything  you  see  there  was  once 
bottles  of  stout.     Hupp,  horse  !  " 

And  it  was  not  very  long  now  till  we  were 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  ^^ 

mounting  past  the  dumpy  little  stone  cross  that 
guards  the  middle  of  the  main  street  of  Cong, 
and  alighting  stifHy  at  the  door  of  the  something- 
or-other  Arms. 

Here  in  this  grey  and  green  land  between  the 
waters  of  Mask  and  Corrib  is  a  scene  of  many 
significant  memories  for  Ireland.  It  was  on  the 
great  plain  of  Moytura  outside  Cong  that,  nineteen 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  and  two  hundred 
years  before  the  Gaelic  Irish  had  set  foot  in 
the  country,  the  fair  godlike  race  of  the  Tuatha 
De  Danaan  contested  with  the  short  dark  Firbolg 
people  for  the  sovereignty  of  Ireland.  The 
Firbolg  (or  Bagmen,  as  their  name  has  been 
translated)  had  been  rulers  of  the  country  for 
less  than  half  a  century.  They  had  come  from 
Greece  where  the  Greeks  had  used  them  as  slaves 
and  had,  says  the  legend,  compelled  them  to 
carry  clay  in  leathern  wallets  on  their  backs 
up  the  terraces  of  the  rocky  hills  to  make  them 
fertile  and  rich.  Escaping  to  Ireland,  they 
had  but  a  short  reign  of  triumph  there,  for  they 
met  with  more  than  one  conqueror. 

But  even  to-day,  it  is  said,  it  is  the  children  of 
the  Firbolg,  not  the  children  of  the  Gael,  whom 
you  see  in  the  poorest  stretches  of  the  west, 
guarding  their  little  fields  of  stones  with  a  tenacity 
of  affection  which  company-promoters  and  the 
other  efficient  children  of  civilisation  do  not 
understand.     One  hears  it  said,  too,  that  it  is 


78  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

among  these  small,  swarthy,  blue-eyed  people, 
with  the  prominent  Adam's  apples,  that  the  only 
really  Celtic  element  in  the  population  of  Ireland 
is  to  be  found.  On  questions  like  this  I  can  speak 
with  no  authority,  but  I  believe  it  is  a  growing 
opinion  among  students  of  race  that  the  Gaelic 
Irish,  though  speaking  a  Celtic  language,  are 
not  a  Celtic  people — that  they  are  a  northern 
people,  indeed,  akin  to  the  Germanic  races,  and 
that  they  came  from  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  and 
the  region  of  the  Elbe. 

As  for  the  Tuatha  De  Danaan  ("  the  Hosts  of 
the  Gods  whose  mother  was  Dana  ")  who  over- 
threw the  Firbolg  on  the  plain  outside  Cong, 
they  were  a  tall,  fair,  and  beautiful  people,  who 
are  also  said  to  have  dwelt  in  Greece,  where  they 
were  famous  as  magicians.  Some  say  that  they 
reached  Ireland  by  way  of  Scandinavia,  Scotland, 
and  the  north-east  of  Ulster,  alighting  "  in  the 
midst  of  dark  clouds,  so  that  the  sun  was  hidden 
for  the  space  of  three  days  and  for  three  nights 
also."  Others,  however,  have  declared  that  the 
Danaan  people  came  direct  to  Ireland  from  heaven. 
"  They  had  no  vessels.  .  .  .  No  one  really  knows 
whether  it  was  over  the  heavens,  or  out  of  the 
heavens,  or  out  of  the  earth  that  they  came. 
Were  they  demons  of  the  devil  .  .  .  were  they 
men  ?  "  Whatever  they  may  have  been  by 
birth,  they  too,  it  seems,  have  survived  on 
into   modern   Ireland.     For,   when   they   finally 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  79 

went  down  before  the  Gael  at  Teltown  in  County 
Meath,  they  betook  themselves  under  the  hills, 
where  they  dwell  in  palaces  that  the  eye  cannot 
see,  and  drink  the  ale  of  youth  and  feast  upon 
immortal  dishes,  and  men  speak  of  them  as  the 
Good  People,  the  Gentry,  and  the  Fairies  (or 
Sidhe).  Their  golden  presences,  moreover,  have 
never  ceased  to  flash  out  into  the  business  of  the 
world  when  Ireland  has  gone  out  to  battle  or 
been  in  straits.  And  their  descendants  are  said 
to  be  among  us  also  in  the  grosser  human  form. 
"  Every  one,"  MacFirbis  has  declared,  "  who  is 
fair-haired,  vengeful,  large,  and  every  plunderer, 
professors  of  musical  and  entertaining  per- 
formances who  are  adepts  of  Druidical  and  magical 
arts,  they  are  the  descendants  of  the  Tuatha  De 
Danaan." 

Naturally,  those  who  like  their  history  and 
legend  moralised  translate  the  ancient  conflict 
between  the  two  peoples  on  the  stony  fields  of 
Cong  as  a  battle  between  intellect  and  ignorance. 
This  interpretation,  however,  hardly  fits  in  with 
the  fact  that  Eochaidh  (Yohee),  the  Firbolg 
king  (the  place  of  whose  fall  and  death  was  till 
recently  marked  by  a  cairn  many  miles  to  the 
north  of  the  battlefield^),  was  the  ruler  who  first 

^  Eochaidh  fled  northwards  ;  "but  was  overtaken  and  slain  on  the 
great  strand  of  Trawshelly  near  Ballysodare  in  the  County  Sligo.  .  .  . 
He  was  buried  where  he  fell,  and  a  cairn  was  raised  over  him  on  the 
strand.  This  cairn  stood  till  the  year  1858  ;  and,  though  it  did  not 
rise  high  over  the  level  of  the  strand,  the  tide  never  covered  it,  and 


8o  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

introduced  law  into  Ireland.  "  He  reigned  ten 
years,"  says  M.  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville  ;  "  during 
his  time  there  was  no  rain  or  tempestuous  weather 
in  Ireland,  the  land  being  watered  by  dew.  In 
his  reign  law  made  its  first  appearance.  No  year 
passed  without  judgment  being  given ;  all  war 
ceased,  and  spears,  being  no  longer  of  any  use,  dis- 
appeared from  the  land."  It  was  the  herald  of 
a  peacful  people,  then,  who  went  out  from  the 
camp  of  the  Firbolg  to  demand  of  the  Tuatha 
De  Danaan  the  cause  of  their  coming  to  Ireland, 
and  we  are  told  that  his  two  spears  were  pointless, 
while  the  two  spears  of  the  Danaan  herald  were 
sharp-pointed  and  light  as  javelins.  The  heralds 
talked  together  in  Irish  and  exchanged  spears, 
and,  before  they  parted,  the  herald  of  the  new- 
comers made  a  proposal  that  Ireland  should  be 
divided  in  two,  and  that  the  Firbolg  should  take 
one-half  and  the  Tuatha  De  Danaan  the  other. 
Peace-loving  though  they  were,  the  Firbolg 
refused,  and  the  others,  being  alarmed  at  the 
sight  of  the  heavy  pointless  (and,  as  they  thought, 
superior)  spears  of  the  enemy,  made  a  precipitate 
retreat,  but  were  overtaken  on  the  Plain  of 
Moytura.  Nuada  of  the  Silver  Hand,  the  Danaan 
king,  again  proposed  the  division  of  the  island 
between  the  two  races,  but  once  more  Eochaidh 

never  could,  as  the  old  records  had  it,  and  as  the  peasantry  firmly 
believed  till  the  last  day  of  its  existence." — See  Dr.  P.  W.  Joyce's 
Wonders  of  Ireland. 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  8i 

would  not  hear  of  such  a  thing.  Consequently — • 
for  they  were  a  gentlemanly  people  in  those  days — 
Nuada  asked  them  when  they  would  be  ready  for 
the  battle  which  must  follow. 

"  We  must  have  time,"  replied  the  others, 
"  to  make,  ready  our  spears,  and  burnish  our 
helmets,  and  sharpen  our  swords  ;  then  we 
should  require  spears  like  yours,  and  you,  also, 
spears  like  those  we  have." 

So  both  sides  agreed  to  an  armistice  of  a  hundred 
and  five  days,  after  which — another  brave  incident 
— they  decided  to  settle  the  business,  not  by  a 
stupid  conflict  between  huge  and  impersonal 
armies,  but  by  a  series  of  daily  combats  between 
equal  numbers  of  chosen  warriors.  They  fought 
in  this  way  for  four  days,  beginning  on  the  5th 
of  June,  and  each  day  the  Danaan  champions  won. 
On  the  fifth  day,  the  Firbolg  proposed  that  three 
hundred  warriors  on  each  side  should  meet  in  a 
final  engagement,  and  whichever  side  won  should 
be  accounted  the  victor.  To  this  suggestion 
the  Tuatha  De  Danaan  replied  by  offering  to 
leave  the  whole  of  Connacht  to  the  Firbolg 
as  their  kingdom.  The  Firbolg  wisely  accepted 
this  arrangement  and  gathered  into  the  west  out 
of  the  other  provinces.  It  was  the  Firbolg,  by 
the  way,  who  first  divided  Ireland  into  provinces 
and  gave  them  their  names.  It  is  also  worth 
noting,  before  we  pass  on  from  the  battle  of 
Moytura,  that  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  Nuada 
6 


82  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

of  the  Silver  Hand  earned  his  name.  His  hand 
having  been  cut  off  in  the  fight,  one  of  the 
magical  craftsmen  who  were  so  numerous  in  his 
camp  made  him  a  new  hand  of  silver.  He  was  to 
lead  the  Tuatha  De  Danaan  some  years  later  to 
another  great  victory  on  another  Moytura — the 
victory  over  the  Fomorian  savages  and  pirates 
on  Moytura  of  Sligo. 

Those  who  are  susceptible  to  fairy  influences 
or  imaginings  will  do  well  to  wander  by  Lough 
Corrib.  For  myself,  I  confess  I  am  too  much  of 
a  sceptic,  and  perhaps  too  little  adventurous,  to 
have  any  traffic  with  this  phantom  population 
of  the  air.  So,  while  I  was  in  Cong,  I  sought  the 
traces  not  of  these  warrior  ghosts — ghosts  for 
whose  objective  reality  an  enthusiastic  American, 
Mr.  Evans  Wentz,  has  recently  advanced  some 
plausible  arguments — but  of  kings  and  saints  and 
such  opaque  creatures.  One  cannot  go  to  that 
grey  bleached  ruin  of  the  Abbey  hidden  so  gently 
from  the  world  down  there  by  the  quiet  water 
without  getting  the  reflection  of  a  vision  of  the 
old  scholarly  and  missionary  Ireland  which  built 
its  little  cities  in  almost  every  beautiful  nook 
of  the  four  provinces.  The  Abbey  has  to 
some  extent  been  restored  in  the  last  century ; 
honestly  restored,  however,  and  only  sufficiently 
to  keep  its  ruined  fragments  from  falling  in  a 
heap. 

Hither  to  this  secret  garden,  still  one  of  the 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  83 

greenest  places  in  the  world,  as  the  ivy  springs 
from  it  up  over  the  face  of  the  old  church,  and 
as  its  high  trees  give  a  shadow  to  the  birds  that 
sing  victories  over  the  ancient  graves,  Rory 
O'Connor,  the  last  King  of  Ireland,  came  in 
search  of  pious  forgetfulness,  when  the  hosts  of 
the  Irish  broke  against  the  mailed  fist  of  the 
Normans.  There  had  been  a  church  here  for 
five  hundred  years  before  that,  a  church  founded 
by  St.  Fechin,  and  as  recently  as  a  century  and  a 
half  before  Rory  O'Connor,  the  penitential  bed 
of  the  saint  had  been  the  scene  of  a  miracle,  for 
out  of  the  earth  beside  it  in  the  hour  when 
Brian  Boru  died  after  his  victory  over  the  Danes 
on  the  shores  of  Dublin  Bay  a  well  of  blood 
suddenly  poured. 

It  was  King  Rory,  according  to  some  authorities, 
who  brought  to  Cong  Abbey  the  beautiful 
cross  of  many  metals  which  has  made  the  name  of 
Cong  famous  wherever  people  care  for  the  art  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  The  Cross  of  Cong,  which  is 
now  in  the  National  Museum  in  Dublin,  is  said 
to  enshrine  a  fragment  of  "  the  Cross  on  which 
the  Founder  of  the  World  suifered,"  but  that 
is  not  the  reason  why  people  nowadays  speak  of 
it  with  enthusiasm.  It  is  treasured  chiefly  because 
in  its  golden  traceries,  in  its  delicate  beauty  of  silver 
and  copper  and  enamel  and  bronze,  is  a  challenge  to 
all  the  world  to  consider  the  civilisation  that  Ireland 
had  built  up  within  herself  before  the  Normans 


84  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

had  ever  set  fire  to  a  church  within  her  shores.^ 
It  announces  the  culture  of  medieval  Ireland  to 
us  as  surely  as  a  statue  of  Pheidias  announces  the 
culture  of  Periclean  Athens.  It  is  only  a  tiny 
instance,  of  course,  of  the  many  remains  of  the 
medieval  arts  and  crafts  that  have  come  down  to 
us,  and  to  me,  at  least,  who  am  no  professor  of 
jewellery,  it  means  a  good  deal  less  than  a  story 
or  even  an  illuminated  manuscript.  Still,  even 
if  the  old  civilisation  had  been  wrecked  to  such 
an  extent  that  nothing  had  survived  out  of  it 
but  the  old  processional  Cross  of  Cong,  we  would 
still  have  a  proof  that  it  was  no  territory  of 
barbarians  that  the  Normans  set  out  to  loot  in 
the  twelfth  century. 

The  present  Abbey  of  Cong,  I  believe,  goes 
back  to  that  century.  We  know  that  an  older 
Abbey  was  burned  in  1114,  and  it  was  to  the  new 
monastery  which  was  built  after  the  fire  that 
King  Rory  withdrew  from  his  defeats.  Though 
he  died  here,  however,  he  does  not  lie  in  the 
Abbey  graveyard,  for  his  body  was  taken  to 
Clonmacnoise,  and  a  sadly  inexact  inscription 
written  over  it  :  "  Rory  O'Connor,  King  of  all 
Ireland,  both  of  the  Irish  and  English." 

If  the  shadow  of  the  old  monkish  king  still 
paces  these  cloisters,  muttering  over  the  tale  of 
his  sins  and  weighing  each  of  them  in  turn  against 

^  Not  that  the  Gael  always  behaved  like  a  twentieth-century  Sunday- 
school  teacher. 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  85 

the  throne  from  which  he  was  an  exile,  he  does  so 
under  the  eye  of  Lord  Ardilaun,  or,  at  least,  of 
Lord  Ardilaun's  attendant.  For  Lord  Ardilaun 
has  undertaken  to  look  after  the  ruin  which  his 
father  repaired  with  excellent  national  spirit,  and 
a  locked  bridge  now  connects  the  Abbey  and 
Lord  Ardilaun's  grounds,  while  a  paid  attendant 
of  his  tracks  you  round  the  ruin  as  though  he 
suspected  you  would  be  robbing  the  tombs.  I 
do  not  resent  unduly  the  presence  of  caretakers 
in  churches  and  such  places,  but  I  hold  that  they 
should  be  something  better  than  detectives,  and 
should  have  some  ornament  of  eloquence  or 
humour  or  learning,  however  inaccurate,  in  keep- 
ing with  the  atmosphere  of  the  place.  Perhaps  the 
silent  and  rather  somnolent  boy  who  guarded  the 
Abbey  when  we  visited  it  was  only  a  temporary 
substitute.  Whether  this  is  so  or  not,  he  was 
utterly  immune  from  the  romance  of  the  place  : 
one  might  as  well  have  tried  to  get  sad  stories 
of  the  death  of  kings  from  a  stone.  He  was  as 
unatmospheric  as  a  guide-book,  and  he  did  not 
seem  to  know  even  bare  guide-book  facts.  I 
would  suggest  to  Lord  Ardilaun,  and  to  all  others 
indeed  who  have  charge  of  ancient  monuments, 
that  they  should  institute  an  examination  in 
myth  and  history  and  natural  raciness  for  would- 
be  caretakers.  Every  caretaker  who  is  not  some- 
thing of  a  talking  book  by  nature  ought  to  be 
locked  up  in  a  library  for  at  least  an  hour  a  day 


86  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

till  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  world  and  the 
dead  imagination  becomes  an  accomplished  fact 
in  him. 

Indeed,  there  is  no  reason  that  I  can  see — if 
this  is  not  too  much  of  a  digression — why  these 
caretakers  should  not  develop  into  the  librarians 
of  the  villages,  and  become  much-needed  centres 
of  learning  and  imaginative  revival. 

It  was  a  hospitable  friend  from  the  village  and 
not  the  official  caretaker  who  led  us  to  the  ivied 
tower  of  the  Abbey,  and  to  the  chamber  that  is 
heaped  high  with  bleached  skulls  and  thigh-bones 
— I  wonder  why  no  one  buries  them — and  who 
showed  us  the  isolated  and  wired-off  grave  of 
some  one  who  had,  if  I  remember  right,  been 
wicked,  but  may  really  have  only  been  unpopular. 
And  it  was  he  who  took  us  to  the  little  ruin  of  the 
Monks'  Fishing  Lodge  which  runs  out  into  the 
water,  a  tiny  jetty,  and  where  I  lay  and  smoked 
and  watched  the  trout  jumping  out  of  the  smooth 
running  water  through  the  long  sunny  hours  of 
an  afternoon.  I  do  not  think  that  I  have  ever 
seen  a  more  beautiful  solitude  than  this.  The 
place  breathed  retreat.  The  robin  in  the  high 
willow  sang  silence.  The  trout  that  leaped  out 
of  the  water  every  now  and  then  with  a  little 
silver  flash  seemed  like  a  visitor  to  the  very 
confines  of  the  world's  stillness.  The  water 
scarcely  murmured  as  it  flowed  past  the  jetty — 
only  an  echo  of  a  whisper  against  the  stones.     I 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  87 

tell  you  I  almost  envied  King  Rovy  brooding  over 
his  sins  and  defeats,  as  I  lay  there  while  the  sun 
blazed  down  out  of  a  blue  sky  and  the  trees  hid 
us  from  the  hills.  Here,  I  felt,  I  too  could  have 
discovered  holy  and  comforting  thoughts  as  I 
caught  my  Friday's  dinner.  Here  amid  men  who 
wrought  a  new  beautyinto  the  pages  of  the  Gospels 
in  gold  and  colour,  and  who  praised  the  Lord  with 
crafts  and  with  learning  between  bell  and  bell, 
even  a  kingdom  might  come  to  seem  but  a  little 
unstable  eminence  like  a  wave  in  the  sea.  But, 
all  the  same,  Rory,  I'm  sure  that  you  must  often 
have  wished  that  your  prayers  were  swords,  and 
that  you  might  have  borne  your  cross  as  Brian 
did  at  the  head  of  an  army,  and  have  seen  your 
enemies  going  down  before  you  like  the  trees 
in  a  burning  wood. 

I  pray  I  may  survive  to  visit  Cong  again,  and 
on  a  propitious  day.  I  am  afraid  the  Abbey 
proved  too  charming  to  us  to  allow  us  to  see  much 
else  of  the  place.  Of  course,  we  could  not  avoid 
seeing  the  foolish,  dry,  boulder-strewn  bed  of  the 
canal  that  was  cut  to  connect  Lough  Mask  and 
Lough  Corrib  more  than  half  a  century  ago — the 
canal  which,  after  it  was  made,  was  found  to  be 
unable  to  hold  any  water  owing,  as  the  guide- 
book says,  to  "  the  porous  and  permeable  character 
of  the  stone  " — but  monuments  of  ineptitude 
like  this  are  one  of  the  least  inspiring  features  of 
modern    Ireland.      It    was    at    the    time  of   the 


88  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Great  Famine  that  this  canal  was  begun,^  and, 
though  the  scheme  was  such  a  failure,  it  was  at 
least  more  sane  in  its  intention  than  those  other 
Manchesterised  methods  of  relief,  according  to 
which  starving  peasants  were  told  off  to  dig 
holes  in  the  ground  and  fill  them  up  again  for 
fear  more  useful  work  might  compete  with  the 
private  enterprises  of  men  of  capital. 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  good  engineering  might 
even  yet  make  something  of  the  canal,  but  I 
know  nothing  about  that.  At  present.  Lough 
Mask  pours  itself  into  Lough  Corrib  through  a 
chain  of  underground  caverns,  where,  to  judge 
from  the  descriptions  of  others,  there  are  some 
pleasant  weird  sensations  to  be  had.  But  we 
could  not  tear  ourselves  away  from  the  Abbey  to 
visit  them,  and,  when  we  did  at  last  get  back 
to  the  hotel,  we  were  sun-surfeited,  and,  besides, 
there  was  a  tipsy  knickerbockered  commercial 
traveller  with  an  eye  like  a  fish  at  the  same  table 
with  us  for  tea,  whose  conversation  would  not 
come  to  an  end. 

In  the  evening,  to  make  up   for   an  hour   of 

balderdash But  I  can  give  you  no  impression 

of  the  hospitable  evening  we  spent  in  that  pleasant 
house  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  where  we  talked  of 
the  Fenians,  and  the  Wildes,  and  the  Dublin 
poets,  and  all  things  and  persons  between  heaven 

1  According  to  one  authority,  but  I  have  heard  it  contradicted  on 
better. 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  89 

and  Ireland.  It  was  strange  out  here  in  a  little 
burning  centre  of  Nationalism  to  meet  those  who 
had  known  Oscar  Wilde  in  his  Irish  days  and 
remembered  his  charm,  and  it  was  stranger  still 
to  think  that  Wilde  could  have  lived  among  these 
enchanted  lakes  and  hills — ^his  father,  Sir  William 
Wilde,  famous  as  an  antiquary,  had  a  house  not 
far  out  of  the  village — and  could  have  missed 
finding  here  the  true  Greece  of  a  modern  Irishman. 
It  has  been  suggested  that,  if  he  had  been  born 
twenty  years  later,  the  Irish  literary  revival 
would  have  given  his  genius  a  foundation  upon 
which  to  build  imperishable  things  beyond  any- 
thing he  succeeded  in  fashioning  in  his  idle  exile. 
This  seems  to  me  to  be  scarcely  disputable.  But 
then  I  am  a  bigot  on  the  matter  of  nationality 
and  genius. 

Next  morning  broke  with  a  thin  shivering 
sun,  and  it  was  a  cold  drive  we  had  down  to  the 
pier  where  the  Galway  steamer — the  steamer 
that  should  have  brought  us  from  Galway  two 
days  before  —  was  waiting  to  take  us  down 
Lough  Corrib  with  its  long  family  of  islands. 
We  had  heard  strange  rumours  of  the  lake. 
It  was  said  to  be  so  shallow  in  parts  that  the 
steamer  had  a  way  of  running  its  nose  on  banks 
of  mud,  whereupon  all  passengers  would  be 
ordered  to  the  stern  so  as  to  seesaw  the  bow  into 
the  air  while  the  boat  was  backed  into  safety. 
There  were  tales  of  unknown  rocks,   too,   that 


90  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

jagged  black  spires  up  towards  the  surface  of  the 
water.  Certainly,  the  Lilliputian  steamer  looked 
an  adventurous  craft  to  trust  to  the  chances  of 
nearly  forty-five  thousand  acres  of  islands  and 
water.  Out  we  beat,  however,  under  a  captain 
who  seemed  bigger  than  the  boat  he  commanded, 
and  I  would  not  ask  a  pleasanter  voyage  than 
along  the  marked  and  winding  channel  of  the 
lake  on  a  golden  day.  It  had  turned  grey  now, 
unfortunately.  Even  with  the  islands  and  the 
distant  hills  and  broken  castles  in  lonely  fields 
here  and  there  guarding  the  memories  of  the 
shore,  there  was  little  beauty  in  the  day.  Cong 
itself  might  have  seemed  a  mere  affair  for  an 
antiquary  on  such  a  day  as  this.  I  was  hoping — 
for  I  had  studied  my  map  badly — to  see  the  famous 
Hen's  Castle,  said  to  have  been  built  by  a  cock 
and  a  hen  in  a  single  night,  on  our  way  out  of  Cong, 
but  this  old  foundation,  as  we  learned,  lies  in  the 
water  along  another  of  the  northern  arms  of  the 
lake.  Here  are  memories,  not  only  of  King  Rory, 
but  of  Grace  O'Malley — Granuaile,  as  we  call 
her — the  woman  admiral  of  Clew  Bay,  who  was 
ready  to  face  the  fleets  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and 
who  was  damned  as  a  pirate  and  a  thief  for  her 
genius.  Lady  Wilde  has  left  it  on  record  that 
Hen's  Castle  (or,  in  Irish,  Caislean  na  Circe)  is 
also  a  place  of  ghostly  influences.  "  Strange  lights 
are  sometimes  seen  flitting  through  it,  and  on 
some  particular  midnight  a  crowd  of  boats  gather 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  91 

round  it,  filled  with  men  dressed  in  green  with 
red  sashes.  And  they  row  about  till  the  cock 
crows,  when  they  suddenly  vanish,  and  the  cries 
of  children  are  heard  in  the  air.  Then  the  people 
know  that  there  has  been  a  death  somewhere  in 
the  region,  and  that  the  Sidhe  (fairies)  have  been 
stealing  the  young  mortal  children,  and  leaving 
some  ill-favoured  brat  in  the  cradle  in  place  of  the 
true  child." 

Inchagoill — Inis  an  Ghaill  Chraibhtigh,  or 
the  Island  of  the  Pious  Foreigner — is  another  of 
the  many  islands  that  attracts  at  least  by  the 
romance  of  its  name,  and  it  lies  not  many  miles 
out  from  Cong  with  its  dismantled  churches  and 
its  trees.  But  the  steamer  is  a  business,  not  a 
pleasure,  venture,  and  did  not  offer  to  stop  here. 
Inchagoill  is  said  to  contain  the  gravestone  of 
Lugnath,  who  was  Patrick's  sister's  son  and  a 
mariner.  But  whether  the  Lugnath  who  is 
buried  there  is  the  saint's  nephew  or  not  seems 
to  be  a  debated  matter. 

It  began  to  rain  before  we  had  achieved  many 
of  the  twenty-seven  miles  of  the  lake,  and  tail- 
coated  farmers  and  grey  and  brown  and  black- 
shawled  women  with  egg-baskets  and  umbrellas 
stood  in  huddled  groups  like  the  fowl  in  a  farm- 
shed  on  a  wet  day  on  the  several  piers  at  which 
we  stopped  with  groaning  sides,  and  pushed  their 
way  aboard  us  till  the  captain  would  cry  out  to 
some  distracted  woman,  who  seemed  to  want  to 


92  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

be  ashore  and  on  the  steamer  at  the  same  time, 
"  If  you  can't  behave  yourself  more  quietly,  I'll 
not  take  you  at  all." 

And  so  we  went  through  the  islands — as  in  so 
many  Irish  lakes,  there  is  said  to  be  exactly  an 
island  here  for  every  day  in  the  year — and  collected 
the  countryside  for  the  Galway  market.  Here 
from  an  island  which  was  a  tuft  of  pines  a  boat 
would  push  out  with  a  man  and  a  crooked  stick 
for  us,  and  there  half  a  village  of  people  would  be 
waiting  for  us  on  the  pier.  One  would  wonder 
where  so  lively  a  population  could  come  from  on 
these  deserted  shores.  Probably  there  were  few 
people  in  the  boat  who  did  not  speak  Irish.  There 
was  a  fashionably  dressed  priest  talking  volubly  in  it 
with  a  little  group  around  him  at  the  back  of  the 
boat.  In  obedience  to  one  of  the  ten  command- 
ments of  the  Gaelic  League — "  Dheamhan  acht 
Gaedhilg  ins  an  nGaedhealtacht,"  which,  being 
translated,  is  "  Nothing  but  Irish  in  the  Irish- 
speaking  districts  " — we  too  were  dumb  in  any 
language  but  this — no  small  piece  of  self-denial 
to  one  who  is  so  poor  a  linguist  as  I  am. 

On  a  box  beside  us  an  old  farmer  was  sitting, 
his  hands  gathered  on  the  top  of  his  stick,  a  drip 
on  the  end  of  his  nose,  and,  as  the  rain  poured 
down  upon  him,  overcoatless  as  he  was,  he  gazed 
into  emptiness  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eyes,  and  indeed 
all  over  his  lean  and  ill-shaven  whiskered  face. 
He  found  great  amusement  in  the  way  in  which 


THE  PATH  TO  CONG  93 

a  red,  shy,  foxy-faced  neighbour  kept  ducking 
here  and  there  behind  boxes  and  people  and  trying 
to  light  his  stump  of  a  clay  pipe  out  of  the  wind. 
And  the  scraps  of  Irish  he  heard  from  us  served 
for  his  entertainment  in  the  intervals  during 
which  the  other  man  in  exhaustion  gave  up  his 
efforts.  Then,  borrowing  the  other's  pipe  and 
smoking  it  quite  successfully  for  himself,  he 
began  to  tell  stories  of  how  he  once  caught  out  a 
Gaelic  League  priest.  He  had  asked  the  priest 
to  tell  him  what  was  the  Irish  for  Galway,  his 
idea  in  doing  so  being  that,  as  in  some  places 
it  is  pronounced  "  Galyiv  "  and  in  others  "  Galye," 
he  would  be  able  to  tell  the  priest  he  was  wrong, 
no  matter  which  answer  he  gave,  and  to  hold  up 
the  other  pronunciation  as  the  right  one.  He 
looked  back  on  that  victory  over  the  priest  with 
great  satisfaction.  Then  he  gave  us  another 
anecdote  at  the  expense  of  the  Irish  revival. 
There  was  a  man  from  his  part  of  the  country — a 
piper,  I  believe — who  was  taken  to  Dublin  to 
play  at  an  Irish  concert  there.  And  before  it 
began  the  man  of  the  concert  said  to  him  :  "  We 
want  you  to  give  us  a  keen."  ^  "  Well,"  replied 
the  Mayo  man,  "  let  you  bring  a  corpse  and  lay 
him  down  before  me,  and  I'll  keen  him  for  you. 
What  would  be  the  sense  of  keening  without  a 
corpse  ?  "  Thus  the  old  man  garrolled  on, 
getting   a   deal  of    amusement  out  of   the  Irish 

^  Lament. 


94  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

revivalists,  though,  like  most  of  the  country- 
people  nowadays,  he  agreed  with  their  aims. 

He  was  especially  interested  to  know  what  they 
called  various  things  like  telegraph-poles,  and 
even  in  Irish  he  knew  no  word  but  "  steamer  " 
for  a  steamer.  I  told  him  the  word  I  had  got  out 
of  a  grammar — "  galtan."  "  That  is  it,"  he  said, 
nodding  agreement ;  "  '  gal '  is  smoke  or  steam. 
'  Galtan  ' — I  never  heard  that  word  before,  but 
I  know  it's  right." 

And,  careless  of  the  rain  and  of  the  scenery 
that  was  blotted  out  of  all  colour  and  wonder, 
we  talked  on  through  the  crooked  straits  that 
connect  the  two  great  spaces  of  the  lake,  and 
across  the  second  great  space  till  we  made  direct 
for  what  seemed  an  impenetrable  forest  of  tall 
rushes,  and  found  the  mouth  of  the  river  Corrib, 
from  which  we  steamed  down  past  Menlough 
Castle,  which  had  a  short  time  before  been  burnt 
one  disastrous  night,  and,  a  little  weary  of  all  the 
stoppages  and  the  wet  air  and  the  crowded  deck 
of  the  steamer,  we  were  soon  carting  our  bags 
down  a  grey  street  of  Galway  again  in  the  end  of 
a  little  procession  of  ambling  women  with  egg- 
baskets  and  farmers  in  weather-beaten  hats  of 
grotesque  shapes — all  making  towards  the  settle- 
ment of  carts  and  donkeys  and  pigs  and  noisy 
hens  that  to  them  for  the  day  was  Galway. 


CHAPTER    III 

THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA 

It  was  the  merest  accident  that  we  went  to 
Lisdoonvarna.  Our  ambition  was  to  get  from 
Spiddle  (a  little  desolate  village  about  ten  miles 
outside  Galway,  where  we  had  been  attending 
the  opening  of  a  summer  school  of  Irish)  to 
Killorglin,  which  is  in  County  Kerry,  in  time 
for  Puck  Fair.  As  we  left  Spiddle  on  Monday 
morning  and  the  Fair  (according  to  the  railway- 
guide)  began  on  Wednesday,  there  would  be  little 
time  except  for  jolts  on  cars  and  other  jolts  in 
railway  trains  in  the  interval.  If  we  made  the 
journey  by  Lisdoonvarna,  it  was  partly  because 
this  involved  the  passage  of  Galway  Bay  by 
steamer  to  Ballyvaughan — for  who  can  resist 
these  little  local  steamers  on  a  holiday  ? — and 
partly  because  a  clerk  in  a  ticket  office  had  ex- 
patiated on  the  beauties  of  the  Cliffs  of  Moher, 
which  are  the  wonder  of  County  Clare  as  Slieve 
League  is  the  wonder  of  County  Donegal.  It 
had  not  often  occurred  to  me  before  that  time  to 
go  anywhere  in  Ireland  purposely  to  see  what  is 


96  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

called  scenery.  I  do  not  like  that  ticketed  and 
public  sort  of  beauty.  Going  to  see  scenery 
always  seems  to  me  to  be  like  taking  an  intro- 
duction to  some  famous  man,  not  for  the  sake  of 
a  reasonable  conversation,  but  for  the  sake  of 
having  met  him.  Perhaps  it  v^as  just  because  I 
was  full  of  all  these  prejudices  that  the  clerk's 
suggestion  seemed  like  the  offer  of  a  novel  ex- 
perience. And  as  it  involved  that  sea-journey 
across  Galway  Bay,  car- journeys  across  half  (or 
what  looked  like  half)  of  the  County  Clare,  and 
made  possible  another  long  voyage  on  a  local 
steamer  up  the  mouth  of  the  Shannon  from 
Kilrush  to  Limerick,  we  yielded  as  a  child  yields 
to  a  bribe  of  sweets. 

We  reached  Galway  from  Spiddle — we  seemed 
to  have  been  doing  nothing  but  reaching  Galway 
for  a  week  past — in  time  for  lunch.  Then  there 
was  an  hour  for  a  smoke  and  a  talk  with  the 
landlord  of  the  hotel,  who  had  boasts  of  knowing 
Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  an  old  Galway  student, 
and  who  before  long  was  taking  my  address  and 
promising  to  send  me  a  box  of  shamrock  on  the 
next  St.  Patrick's  Day — a  box  of  shamrock,  alas ! 
which,  as  we  journalists  say,  never  materialised. 
Comfortably  sighing  out  memories  and  promises, 
our  host  then  accompanied  us  down  to  the  quay, 
and,  kindly,  stout,  conversational  and  sad  under 
his  little  grey  cap,  he  made  the  pace  as  easy 
as  possible,  always  chiding  our  nervous  desire  to 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA         97 

hasten  with  a  "  Plenty  of  time,  plenty  of  time  !  " 
that  made  one  feel  that  one  was  in  a  land  of 
lullaby. 

Just  as  we  left  the  hotel — at  least  it  seemed  like 
that — the  air  grew  curiously  still.  It  was  as 
though  all  the  winds  had  suddenly  paused  on 
tiptoe  to  hear  a  watch  tick,  or  some  other  tiny 
sound.  High  up  in  the  west,  images  of  clouds 
like  ghosts  of  the  Brocken  were  mounting,  ashen 
and  here  and  there  golden-edged  and  of  the  colour 
of  dirty  water.  There  was  silver  in  the  air,  but 
no  sun  shining,  at  least  not  openly.  The  light 
dazzled  one,  and  at  the  same  time  there  was  no 
genuine  brightness  in  it.  One  had  an  eerie  feel- 
ing that  terrible  things  were  trying  to  burst  out 
upon  the  world.  At  one  moment  it  was  as  though 
goblins  had  been  at  work  turning  all  the  metals 
into  a  multifarious  liquid  brew,  and  yonder  in 
the  sky  we  had  a  great  molten  sea  of  the  stuff 
washing  the  feet  of  unearthly  towers.  The  next 
moment  it  was  as  though  all  the  colours  except 
the  colours  of  the  rainbow  had  broken  loose  and 
occupied  the  heavens.  In  other  words,  it  was 
one  of  the  weirdest  days  you  could  see.  No 
wonder  that  our  host,  hand  in  pocket,  gazed  at  it 
in  a  kind  of  awe  and  said  :  "  That's  a  curious  sky. 
Surely,  Mr.  Lynd,  that's  a  curious  sky.  I  don't 
ever  remember  seeing  a  sky  like  that  before.  It's 
a  curious  sky,  a  curious  sky.  I  wonder  what  it 
means." 
7 


98  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

That  was  the  plain  prose  of  it. 

"  I  wouldn't  be  a  bit  surprised  if  it  thun- 
dered," he  went  on  ;  "  you  know,  I  wouldn't  be  a 
bit  surprised  if  it  thundered.  It's  a  curious  sky. 
I  wonder  what  can  be  the  meaning  of  it  at  all. 

I   hope   to   God "     And    then   he   suddenly 

checked  himself,  as  though  what  he  hoped  to  God 
were  something  too  terrible  to  mention.  After 
a  moment's  pause,  "  I  must  ask  the  captain,"  he 
said,  with  decision.  And,  in  a  heavy  silence,  our 
eyes  fixed  on  the  horror  of  that  looming  sky,  we 
arrived  at  the  quayside. 

I  do  not  know  whether  he  asked  the  captain  or 
not.  If  he  did,  he  was  much  too  considerate  to 
communicate  the  result  to  us.  Or,  perhaps,  it 
was  that  he  had  left  very  little  time  for  parting 
sighs.  In  a  few  minutes,  the  prelude  of  shouts 
and  banging  gangways  and  bells  was  over,  our 
good-byes  spoken  and  our  little  two-decked  tub 
of  a  steamer  churning  out  into  the  desolate  bay. 
Here,  as  we  made  our  way  out  through  the  be- 
calmed fishing-smacks,  it  was  even  stranger  than 
on  land.  Under  the  sunless  light  the  water 
was  still  and  white,  like  an  immense  lake  of  milk 
— a  lake  of  milk,  however,  in  which  reflections 
were  curiously  clear.  Every  tarry  ship  stood 
upon  an  image  of  itself,  which  hung  down  into 
the  water  as  black  as  judgment.  There  were 
reflections  from  the  land,  reflections  from  the 
buoys  in  the  water.     Galway  Bay  was  a  mirror 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA         99 

of  the  fears  that  day.  Then,  suddenly,  a  mon- 
strous piece  of  blackness  broke  through  the  surface, 
and,  sailing  a  little  triangular  fin,  made  for  us, 
and  disappeared.  Everybody  on  the  boat  began 
asking  about  it.  "  It's  a  porpoise,"  said  one. 
"  I  never  saw  a  porpoise  in  a  calm  like  this,"  said 
another.  And  a  fisherman,  with  a  jacket  over 
his  blue  jersey,  spat  into  the  sea,  and  said  :  "  It's 
a  shark."  Then  in  another  moment  there  was 
the  same  rising  of  the  shape  out  of  the  water, 
only  a  little  nearer  this  time,  the  same  pirate 
fin,  the  same  retreat  under  the  sea,  leaving  us 
with  the  feeling  that  some  sinister  unknown 
power  had  been  casting  the  evil  eye  on  us.  I 
understood  then  the  superstition  of  sailors  who 
believe  that  for  a  shark  to  follow  a  ship  portends 
the  death  of  some  one  aboard.  That  beast,  as 
it  came  after  us,  seemed  as  inevitable  as  doom, 
breaking  as  it  did  into  the  stilly  world  in  which 
our  boat  was  the  only  thing  that  moved.  .  .  . 
It  was  with  some  relief  that  we  ultimately  shook 
ourselves  free  of  it  and  saw  it  swerving  off  towards 
the  fishing-smacks,  among  which  it  could  be  seen 
rising  now  and  then  upon  its  peeping  inky  games. 
And  then  we  saw  no  more  of  it.  .  .  .  Behind  us 
slumbered  Galway,  grey  and  without  smoke  : 
out  at  sea  the  Aran  Islands  were  black  stains  at 
the  mouth  of  the  bay  :  across  in  County  Clare, 
whither  we  were  going,  the  rocky  hills  rose  from 
the  water,  scarred  and  barren  and  forbidding.  .  .  . 


TOO  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

On  the  quay  at  Ballyvaughan  a  row  of  wagon- 
ettes and  cars  was  standing  ;  they  could  have 
found  room  for  at  least  thirteen  times  as  many 
people  as  the  steamer  had  brought  across.  Nearly 
all  of  them  seemed  to  come  from  the  hotels  at 
Lisdoonvarna,  which  was  ten  miles  off  by  the 
nearest  road.  We  had  already  picked  our  hotel 
at  a  guess  from  a  list  we  had  seen  in  a  railway- 
guide,  and  after  some  shouting  we  found  the  car 
that  was  connected  with  it.  Then  we  got  up 
and  drove  off  till  we  came  to  the  first  public -house. 
It  seems  to  be  a  ritual  with  drivers  of  cross-country 
cars  to  stop  at  the  first  public-house,  or  the  one 
after,  even  if  it  be  only  a  few  yards  away.  All 
the  cars  and  wagonettes  pulled  up  either  here  or  a 
door  or  two  farther  on.  Then  we  started  on  our 
journey  up  into  the  grey  and  gloomy  hills.  One 
of  Cromwell's  generals  is  said  to  have  declared  of 
this  part  of  the  county — the  barony  of  Burren,  as 
it  is  called — that  it  didn't  contain  wood  enough 
to  hang  a  man,  water  enough  to  drown  him,  or 
earth  enough  to  bury  him,  and  certainly  these 
introductory  rocks  reach  an  extreme  pitch  of 
desolation  and  wildness.  Grey  as  a  dead  fire,  they 
rise  in  the  imagination  as  the  field  of  old  battles 
of  the  Stone  Age,  when  small  men  rushed  from 
their  hiding  behind  the  boulders  and  swung  their 
little  axes  with  murderous  cries  above  the  heads 
of  their  enemies.  Corkscrew  Hill,  as  the  road  is 
called  which  winds  right  and  left,  and  left   and 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA       loi 

right,  and  right  and  left,  till  one  is  finally  safe  on 
the  great  plateau  which  absorbs  so  much  of  the 
county,  is,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  one  of 
the  wonderful  roads  of  Ireland.  To  go  along  it 
in  the  dark,  I  imagine,  would  be  to  wander  among 
the  companies  of  the  disembodied.  The  majority 
of  people  leave  the  cars  to  tug  along  on  the  round- 
about way,  and  themselves  take  short-cuts  across 
the  rough  grassy  patches  that  lie  between  bit 
and  bit  of  the  road  up  the  face  of  the  hill.  Here 
at  every  step  up  the  terraced  slopes  we  seemed  to 
be  getting  farther  into  a  world  of  twilight  and 
hilly  mysteries.  The  greatest  of  the  heights  about 
us  lay  upon  the  land  like  the  huge  boss  of  a  Titan's 
shield,  a  round  of  greyness. 

Then,  on  the  upper  plain,  we  got  on  to  the  car 
again,  and  listened  to  the  discourse  of  the  red- 
whiskered  driver  on  the  demerits  of  the  country, 
the  foxes  that  creep  among  the  unfenced  hills, 
and  the  ancient  stories  of  the  County  Clare. 
"  Did  you  ever  hear  of  Maighread  Ruadh  ?  "  he 
asked.  "  She  was  a  terrible  woman.  She  lived — 
do  you  see  the  hill  yonder  in  a  line  with  the  white 
house  I'm  showing  you  with  the  whip  ?  Well, 
it's  near  that  she  had  her  castle,  and  there  was  a 
cross-roads  near  it,  and  they  say  she  kept  a  gate 
at  it,  and,  any  traveller  that  came  that  way,  she 
wouldn't  let  him  past  till  he  had  paid  her  a  toll 
of  all  she  asked  him.  And,  if  he  wouldn't  pay, 
she  would  string  him  up  :  she  would  give  him  a 


102  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

terrible  doing,  anyway.  Well,  for  all  she  was  cruel, 
there  was  one  was  crueller,  and  that  was  her 
husband.  However  it  came  about,  one  man 
wouldn't  do  her,  and  when  the  husband  was 
away  one  time,  what  did  she  do  but  bring  her 
lovers,  twelve  of  them,  into  the  castle,  and  had 
them  waiting  on  her  at  the  table  dressed  up  as 
young  girls.  That  went  on  till  the  husband  got 
wind  of  it,  and  after  that  he  hurries  home  and  kills 
the  twelve  of  them,  and  he  takes  Maighread 
Ruadh  and — ah,  he  was  a  devil — ah,  ma'am, 
begging  your  pardon,  he  cuts  the  breasts  off  her. 
Maybe  it's  only  a  story  that's  in  it,  but  I  always 
heard  it  told  as  a  true  story.  They  say  it's 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  years  since  that 
happened.  .  .  ." 

And  with  such  stories  of  a  medievalism  that 
seems  to  have  put  forth  its  crimes  and  its  sanctities 
abundantly  in  Ireland  as  elsewhere,  the  road 
slipped  behind  us.  Here  on  the  plateau  the 
country  stretched  away  mile  after  level  mile  with 
nothing  to  be  seen  on  either  hand  but  purple 
bogland  silent  and  pathless,  and  no  moving 
thing  but  the  cars  stringing  out  on  the  road  ahead 
and  behind  us.  Evening  was  deepening.  We 
were  soon  caught  in  the  fringes  of  slowly  moving 
clouds,  and  rain  began  to  patter.  The  clouds 
trailed  over  the  hills,  now  coming  lower,  now 
parting  and  revealing  to  us  faintly  a  square- 
shaped    mountain    far    off    on    our    left,    Slieve 


THE   OLU-AGE   PEXSIOXER. 
From  the  falnling  by  Paul  Henry. 


BOST0N  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA       103 

Callan,  which,  the  driver  assured  us,  could  be 
seen  from  any  part  of  the  County  Clare.  Mile 
after  mile  we  jolted  on  through  the  solitude, 
till  darkness  had  fallen  and  only  a  faint  reddish 
light  showed  in  the  west.  Then  the  road  began 
to  descend  sharply.  The  horse  stepped  more 
briskly.  Sudden  lights  appeared  in  the  blackness, 
and  with  a  sense  of  discovery  we  rattled  down  the 
hill  into  the  settlement  of  hydropathics  and  hotels 
which  is  Lisdoonvarna,  dropped  into  the  twisted 
hollow  of  the  town,  and  climbed  a  last  little  hill 
that  took  us  to  the  hotel  we  had  chosen  so  casually. 
When  we  got  off  at  the  door,  it  was  as  though 
we  had  landed  into  the  beginnings  of  a  house- 
party — a  house-party  in  which  nearly  every  guest 
was  a  priest.  The  grey-haired  lady  in  black 
who  received  us  in  the  hall  seemed  more  like  the 
hostess  of  a  country-house  than  the  proprietor  of 
a  hotel ;  and,  indeed,  though  there  was  business 
intelligence  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  welcome 
marked  in  her  face,  it  was  as  a  hostess  rather  than 
a  business  woman  that  she  went  among  her 
boisterous  guests  while  we  were  there.  We 
arrived  just  in  time  to  get  the  last  room  in  the 
hotel, and  Justin  time  for  tea — for  thearrangement 
of  the  meals  here,  like  everything  else,  was  in  the 
correct  Irish  fashion,  with  tea  instead  of  dinner 
in  the  evening.  Priests  were  in  crowds  in  the 
hall  and  passed  one  on  the  stairs,  one  humming 
a   tune,   another    talking   nonsense    to   a    lot   of 


I04  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

girls,  another  aloof  and  quietly  smiling  and 
entering  into  the  high  spirits  of  the  place  by 
proxy,  like  the  elderly  ladies  from  Limerick  who 
sat  with  their  knitting  in  the  corners  and  looked 
on.  The  two  or  three  boys  who  were  there 
were  romping  about  among  the  priests'  legs, 
tugging  at  sticks  with  them,  and  playing  all 
sorts  of  noisy  scrimmaging  games.  Girls  in 
high-necked  blouses  chattered,  not  with  each 
other,  but  with  groups  of  the  clergy,  in  every 
square  yard  of  the  place,  and  the  male  laity  in 
the  persons  of  a  few  young  men  were  thrust  into 
a  wallflower  loneliness. 

The  gong  for  tea  sounded,  and  we  went  in  and 
sat  down  at  one  of  the  tables.  In  to  the  same 
table,  a  few  minutes  afterwards,  came  two  young 
priests,  one  of  them  stout  and  tra-la-laing  till  he 
sat  down,  whereupon  he  stopped  suddenly  and 
said  "  Good  evening."  He  guessed  before  long 
that  we  had  not  come  to  Lisdoonvarna  to  drink 
the  waters.  "  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  who  does," 
he  said,  as  he  covered  his  bread  thickly  with  jam. 
"  They  say  there  are  more  people  ruin  their 
health  than  get  it  back  at  Lisdoonvarna." 
"  How's  that  ?  "  said  I.  "  Diversion,"  he  replied. 
"  Lisdoonvarna's  a  terrible  place  for  diversion. 
Croquet  and  other  exhausting  games  all  day,  and 
dancing  and  gaiety  all  night — I  tell  you,  after  a 
fortnight  of  Lisdoonvarna,  it's  only  the  strongest 
constitutions  can  do  without  a  holiday."    "  WeU," 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA        105 

said  the  other  priest,   "  the  last  time  I  was  in 

Lisdoonvarna  I  stayed  at  the ,"  naming  one 

of  the  other  hotels,  "  and  it  was  about  as  dull  a 
place    as    I    ever    knew."     "  That's    true,"    said 

Friar  Tuck  ;    "  down  at  the they  do  seriously 

try  to  cure  their  rheumatism  and  old  age  with 
doses  of  sulphur."  "  They're  a  stiff,  formal  lot," 
said  his  companion.  "  I  never  knew  anybody  to 
go  there  twice,"  Friar  Tuck  admitted.  "  Now 
nobody  ever  comes  to  this  hotel  that  doesn't 
want  to  come  back  again.  This  is  known  as 
Liberty  Hall  —  Liberty  Hall,"  he  repeated, 
rattling  the  knife  on  the  edge  of  his  plate  to  call 
the  attention  of  the  maid-servant  and  get  her  to 
bring  round  the  teapot  and  fill  his  cup. 

Naturally,  it  was  only  a  matter  of  minutes 
till  he  discovered  that  we  were  Gaelic  Leaguers. 

"  Ah  !  "  he  said.  "  Bo— a  cow  :  I  got  that 
far.  It's  a  terrible  hard  language.  Do  you 
think  will  it  ever  be  spoken  again  ?  Bo — a  cow. 
Hilloa,  here's  your  man,"  he  exclaimed,  as  a  fair 
boyish  priest  came  and  sat  down  at  the  other  side 
of  us.     "  Here  are  two  Gaelic  Leaguers,  Father 

,   and    I    haven't    a     word    for    them    but 

bo — a  cow." 

I  do  not  think  it  was  merely  because  he  was  a 
Gaelic  Leaguer,  or  because  he  knew  some  of  my 

friends,  that  I  liked  Father so  warmly  from 

the  first.  Nor  was  it  altogether  because  he  had 
so    much    the    air    of    a    liberal-minded    young 


io6  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Presbyterian  minister  (though,  I  will  confess,  I 
counted  that  to  him  for  a  virtue).  But  he  was 
one  of  those  men  who  radiate  character  ;  he  was 
at  once  intensely  human  and  a  fighter  for  ideas, 
as  it  were,  with  his  fist.  When  you  get  a  young 
Presbyterian  minister  like  that,  you  usually  find 
him  struggling  under  the  dead  hand  of  his  elders. 
When  you  get  a  young  Catholic  priest  like  that, 
it  is  not  improbable  that  he  is  struggling  under 
the  dead  hand  of  his  Bishop.  Our  new  friend 
with  the  bright  hair  and  the  boyish  eyes  was  one 
of  the  victims  of  the  war  of  a  few  years  ago 
between  the  Bishops  and  the  Irish  people  on  the 
question  of  the  place  of  Irish  in  the  National 
University.  The  people,  it  may  be  remembered, 
demanded  in  ardent  public  meetings  and  through 
their  County  Councils  that  the  Irish  language 
should  be  an  essential  part  of  the  curriculum  in  the 
new  University.  The  Bishops,  who  apparently 
wanted  the  University  to  be  a  Catholic  institution, 
attracting  Catholic  students  from  all  parts  of  the 
English-speaking  world,  issued  a  decree  through 
their  Standing  Committee  in  favour  of  leaving 
Irish  an  optional  subject.  Everywhere  over  the 
country  the  younger  priests  had  been  joining 
with  the  people  in  demanding  fair  treatment 
for  a  language  which  was  known  to  at  least  a 
thousand  times  as  many  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  country  as  any  other  language  except  English. 
The    Bishops,    who   had    declared    the    subject 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA       107 

a  matter  for  fair  argument,  now  began  nearly 
everywhere  to  muzzle  the  pro-Irish  priests.  Dr. 
O'Hickey,  the  Professor  of  Irish  at  Maynooth, 
who  championed  the  popular  side,  was  requested 
to  resign,  and,  when  he  refused,  he  was  dismissed 
from  his  post.  Those  who  talk  about  Ireland 
being  Rome-ridden,  if  they  were  open  to  con- 
viction, would  see  in  this  war  between  the 
Hierarchy  and  the  Irish  people  and  in  the  ultimate 
victory  of  the  latter  the  clearest  disproofs  of  their 
theory.  Unfortunately,  though  the  cause  won, 
the  priests  who  had  fought  for  it  did  not.  Many 
of  them  were  not  only  temporarily  silenced, 
but  either  lost  promotion  or  were  transferred  to 
less  important  positions.  Something  like  this 
had  happened  to  our  neighbour.  Probably  the 
officialdom  of  the  Church  did  sincerely  regard 
him  as  a  crank,  a  hothead,  and  an  unsafe  person  : 
official  churches  cannot  be  expected  to  look  on 
ideas  and  enthusiasms  except  with  suspicion.  The 
young  priest  did  not,  on  the  other  hand,  put  it 
that  way.  He  was  as  merry  as  a  saint,  and  was 
much  too  busy  reviving  games  and  education 
in  his  new  district  to  grumble. 

In  so  mysterious  and  desolate  a  countryside  it 
was  natural  that  the  conversation  should  turn  at 
one  time  or  another  on  the  supernatural  beings 
with  which  the  human  imagination  peoples  such 
regions — on  fairies  and  ghosts  and  those  who  have 
seen  them  or  who  believe  they  have  seen  them. 


io8  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

It  was  while  we  were  discussing  ghosts,  and  the 
question  whether  ghosts  are  ever  audible  and 
visible  at  the  same  time,  that  the  priest  told  us 
about  the  only  ghost  he  had  ever  seen — and  heard. 
This  had  been  at  a  funeral  at  which  he  had  noticed 
a  curious  little  grey  priest  in  the  procession.  And 
this  little  sad-faced  man  had  come  and  stood  at 
his  elbow  by  the  graveside,  and  he  had  been  struck 
by  the  beautiful  silver  tone  of  his  voice  and  the 
melancholy  expression  of  his  features,  as  well  as 
by  the  rather  shabby  clothes  he  was  wearing. 
When  the  service  was  over,  he  turned  to  another 
priest  and  asked  him  who  it  was  had  been  standing 
beside  him  at  the  grave. 

"  It  was  I  was  next  to  you,"  said  the  other  in 
surprise. 

"  No,"  he  had  declared ;  "  I  mean  the  little 
grey-headed  priest  who  was  standing  between 
us." 

And  when  he  described  the  latter,  he  was  told 
that  there  had  been  no  priest  answering  that 
description  at  the  funeral,  but  that  the  last  priest 
of  the  parish  in  which  they  were  had  looked 
and  spoken  exactly  like  that,  but  he  had  died  some 
time  previously.  The  priest  could  not  make  up 
his  mind  whether  he  had  seen  a  ghost  or  not.  .  .   . 

It  was  only  weariness  that  kept  us  from  going 
down  into  the  village  to  see  a  travelling  circus 
that  evening.  But  this  hive  of  gay  priests,  this 
black  garrison  of  the  clergy  on  their  holidays. 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA        109 

was,  as  it  turned  out,  worth  a  hundred  such 
conventional  pleasures.  Personally,  I  had  long 
known  something  of  the  merriments  of  the  clergy 
of  other  denominations  when  they  gather  in 
companies  round  a  fire  and  set  their  pipes  going. 
But  I  had  never  before  seen  the  Catholic  clergy- 
disporting  themselves  en  masse,  as  it  were.  Here 
they  were  like  a  crowd  of  boys  on  a  holiday.  One 
of  them  walked  up  and  down  the  hall  flirtatiously 
with  a  girl  on  each  arm,  a  challenge  to  the  laughter 
of  the  others,  who  smoked  him  for  a  playboy. 
Others,  no  less  flirtatious,  jested  and  gesticulated 
on  the  crowded  sofas  to  the  immense  admiration 
of  laughing  groups  of  girls  and  benign  old  ladies, 
who  smiled  on  the  fun  from  their  corners. 
Another,  a  little  man  with  a  face  like  a  laughing 
moon,  who  rose  on  the  tips  of  his  toes  as  he  walked 
with  an  exaggerated  straight  back,  tried  to  chase 
the  laity  into  the  drawing-room,  where  they  were 
to  dance  and  to  have  songs.  We  allowed  ourselves 
to  be  driven  in  through  one  of  the  two  doors  that 
led  out  of  the  hall  into  the  drawing-room,  and 
found  ourselves  on  a  settee  in  the  middle  of  the 
room.  The  little  laughing  priest  before  long  got 
enough  girls  together  for  a  set  of  lancers,  and  then 
he  went  out  in  search  of  young  men  to  be  their 
partners.  Two  shy  youths,  a  tall  and  a  short  one, 
both  in  flaming  yellow  boots,  he  dragged  in  by 
the  sleeves,  but  still  he  had  not  enough  men. 
Then,  for  the  second  time,  he  besought  me  to  do 


no  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

my  duty.  He  got  down  on  one  knee  and  spread 
his  arms  in  supplication.  I,  however  (being  in- 
competent), was  obdurate.  He  made  a  gesture 
of  despair. 

"  Girls  in  dozens  pining  to  dance,  and  no  boys 
to  dance  with  them,"  he  exclaimed,  as  though 
the  end  of  the  world  had  come.  "  And  this — 
is — Lisdoonvarna  !  " 

He  succeeded  in  rooting  another  young  man 
out  from  somewhere,  however,  and  soon  the 
lancers  were  going,  and  the  two  shy  young  men 
in  yellow  boots  were  losing  all  their  shyness  ; 
indeed,  they  went  through  the  galloping  and 
whirling  parts  of  the  dance  later  on  as  riotously 
as  they  had  before  been  timid. 

The  dance  ended,  the  little  moon-faced  priest 
brought  in  another  little  stout  priest,  who  was 
the  melancholy  double  of  himself,  to  sing  a  song. 
And  of  all  the  songs  on  the  earth,  what  do  you 
think  he  chose  to  sing  ?  "  Scenes  that  are 
Brightest  !  "     You  know  the  thing. 

"  Scenes  that  are  brightest  ^ 

Ma-a-ay  la-ast 
A-a-a  whi-ile." 

He  sobbed  that  song.  He  poured  it  out  of  his 
bosom  like  an  old-fashioned  operatic  tenor  with 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ceiling.  He  was  crimson 
with  emotion.  He  rose  into  the  air  with  it  on 
the  high  notes.  At  length,  I  dared  look  at  him 
no  more.     I  watched  instead  the  old  ladies  with 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA        in 

their  knitting,  beaming  entranced.  I  watched  the 
crowds  of  young  priests  standing  in  and  behind 
the  doors,  and  they  too  smiled  as  though  they 
were  enjoying  themselves.  Then  when  it  was  all 
over,  we  all  clapped  our  hands  and  said  "  Thank 
you,"  and  the  little  stout  priest  took  his  broken 
heart  over  to  a  chair  near  the  wall  and  sat  down. 
And  I,  in  dread  that  this  might  be  followed  by 
"  We  met — 'twas  in  a  Crowd  "  or  "  She  wore  a 
Wreath  of  Roses,"  slipped  out  of  the  room. 

If  I  went  to  the  bar,  it  was  not  because  the  song 
had  depressed  my  spirits  beyond  ordinary  remedies, 
or  because  I  was  particularly  thirsty,  or  because 
I  am  not  in  theory  and  largely  by  habit  a  tee- 
totaller. I  went  there  simply  because  there  was 
such  a  crowd  of  cheerful  people  in  the  hall,  and 
I  felt  a  nervous  stranger  among  them. 

When  I  got  into  the  bar.  Friar  Tuck  was  there, 
discoursing  with  another  curate. 

"  You'll  have  a  drink  with  me,"  he  greeted  me. 
"  What  will  you  have  ?  " 

I  told  him  I  would  have  a  small  Jameson. 

He  looked  round  till  he  saw  a  bottle  of  Jameson, 
took  it  down  from  the  shelf,  made  the  barmaid 
give  him  a  corkscrew,  put  the  bottle  between  his 
knees,  and  opened  it,  and  in  a  minute  was  flooding 
whisky  into  a  tumbler  for  me  as  though  I  could 
drink  it  by  the  half-pint. 

"  Easy,"  I  told  him.     "  I  said  a  small  one." 

"  Ah,"  he  observed  knowingly,  continuing  to 


112  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

fill  my  tumbler  till  it  was  as  full  as  he  thought  was 
good  for  me,  "  there's  one  good  reason  for  drink- 
ing small  whiskies :  you  can  take  more  of  them." 
When  I  got  back  into  the  hall  again,  the  priests 
were  still  crowding  about  the  drawing-room 
doors,  not  dancing  themselves,  for  apparently  they 
are  not  allowed  to  do  that,  but  encouraging,  nay, 
compelling,  everybody  else  to  dance.  Irish  priests 
are  pictured  by  a  good  many  of  their  modern 
critics  as  a  saturnine  company.  Perhaps  there  is 
something  in  the  air  of  Lisdoonvarna  which  turns 
them  jovial.  Perhaps  stern  human  nature  here 
takes  a  little  holiday  of  irresponsible  gaiety  as  it 
did  in  the  Middle  Ages  when  the  Abbot  of 
Unreason,  or  Lord  of  Misrule,  was  so  important 
a  figure  in  the  Church  year.  Certain  it  is  that  in 
this  hotel,  set  in  the  middle  of  the  bogs  of  Ireland, 
a  whole  host  of  Father  O'Flynns  were  foregathered 
as  if  determined  to  live  up  to  the  portrait  in  Mr. 
Graves's  song.  Soon  the  dance  was  ended,  and 
I  went  out  into  the  air,  and  a  priest's  voice 
reached  me  through  the  window,  roaring  a 
comic  song  to  the  other  priests  and  the  beaming 
Limerick  ladies.  And,  as  behind  two  little  town- 
boys  who  were  amusing  themselves  out  in  the 
moist  darkness  I  tried  to  peep  past  the  sides  of 
the  blind  into  the  golden  light  of  the  room,  I 
caught  snatches  of  lines  like — 

**  Oh,  boys,  oh,  my  heart  is  growing  grey ; 
I'm  the  hardest- featured  man  in  Petravore." 


THROUGH  LISDOONVARNA       113 

Then  there  was  another  dance.  I  was  dragged 
in  to  see  it  because  it  was  an  Irish  dance — some 
kind  of  a  jig — the  Lord  knows  I  know  nothing 
about  dancing.  After  this  everybody  came  into 
the  coolness  of  the  hall  again,  and  crowded  the 
seats.  But  they  were  not  so  crowded  that  a 
blooming  young  lady  with  clusters  of  chestnut 
hair  and  a  sea  of  joy  in  her  eyes  and  lips  could  not 
find  room  on  a  sofa,  as  with  a  challenge  of  "  Make 
way  for  the  Kilkee  gang  !  "  she  plumped  herself 
down  in  the  middle  of  its  occupants.  The  few 
children  of  the  place  still  played  violent  eel-like 
games  among  the  legs  of  their  elders. 

Suddenly  a  hush  fell.  Some  one  inside  the 
room  had  begun  to  sing  "  Sing  me  to  Sleep,"  to 
sing  it  as  though  her  soul  was  in  the  singing. 
The  Kilkee  girl  kept  silent,  too,  till  it  came  to  the 
chorus.  Then  she  announced  to  the  entire  hall, 
"  That  song  always  makes  me  feel  sea-sick,"  and 
she  began  buzzing  a  kind  of  bass  accompaniment. 
She  was  an  irreverent  girl.  Then,  just  as  we 
were  getting  back  into  the  hush  of  sentiment,  a 
little  chit  of  a  girl,  who  was  trying  to  tug  a 
walking-stick  from  a  decorous  middle-aged  priest, 
broke  the  spell  again  with  a  loud,  "  Ah,  Father 
Healy,  you're  a  terrible  tease  !  "  I  think  a  waltz 
came  after  that — a  wretched  London  musical- 
comedy  waltz.  I  am  afraid  I  agree  with  Byron 
about  the  waltz,  though  the  young  men  in  the 
yellow  boots  unquestionably  danced  it  with  the 


114  RAMBLES  IN  IRFXAND 

greatest    discretion.     Then    my    fellow-traveller 
sang.     An   Irish   country  song.     When   she  had 
finished,  the  moon-faced  priest,  who  was  master 
of  the  ceremonies,  came  up  to  me  where  I  was 
standing  at  the  door  and  .grasped  my  arm  eagerly. 
"  Is    that    your   good    lady  ?  "    he    asked.      "  It 
is,"  I  said.     "  You  should  be  proud  of  her,"  he 
declared,     reaching    up     and    patting    me    en- 
thusiastically on  the  shoulder — "  you  should  be 
proud  of  her."     "  I  am,"  said  I.     And  with  that 
he  was  off  into  the  room  again  and  standing  beside 
the  piano,  with  rosy  face,  singing  "  Believe  me, 
if  all  those  endearing  young  charms "  with   all 
his  muscles,  till  the  sweat  came  out  in  beads  on 
his  round  smooth  brow.   ...  By  the  time  the 
song  was  over,  old  priests,  middle-aged  priests,  and 
young  priests,  with  a  few  inconspicuous  laymen, 
were  flapping  their  mackintoshes  and  closing  their 
umbrellas  and  wiping  their  feet  on  the  mats  in 
the  porch.     Some  of  them  apparently  had  been 
to  the  circus.     "  Rotten,"  declared  one  grizzled 
holiday-maker.      "  That    was    the    worst    clown 
I  ever  saw,"  observed  another.     "  It  was  a  poor 
show,"  said  a  third.     "  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  a  young 
man,  embracing  the  whole  population  of  the  hall 
in  his  glance,  "  you  had  good  sense  not  to  stir 
from  the  hotel,  so  you  had." 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY 

If  you  want  to  get  out  of  Lisdoonvarna,  you  must 
do  it  hy  car — unless  you  have  an  unnatural  taste 
for  walking.  If  you  take  a  direct  cross-country 
road  you  will  fall  in  with  the  County  Clare 
railway  system — it  is  far  more  like  a  steam-tram 
system — at  Ennistymon,  about  nine  miles  away. 
But  if  you  want  to  see  the  Cliffs  of  Moher  which, 
says  the  leading  guide-book,  "  form  some  of  the 
most  sublime  objects  of  the  western  coast,"  you 
will  have  to  go  a  long  roundabout  journey  and 
join  the  train  farther  on  at  Lahinch. 

There  are  benches  alongside  the  ditches  near 
Lisdoonvarna,  and  valetudinarian  ladies  were 
sitting  out  on  them  with  their  restive  grand- 
daughters as  we  drove  out  of  the  village.  Burly 
parish  priests  were  exercising  their  constitutions 
by  tramping  along  the  roadsides.  There  was  a 
gigantic  peace  over  the  land.  Compared  with 
Galway,  this  seemed  to  be  a  county  of  flowers 
peeping  out  among  the  grass — mostly  grass,  of 


ii6  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

course,  but  wild  flowers  instead  of  stones.  Like 
the  day  before,  it  was  a  day  of  curious  light. 
When  we  came  near  the  coast  and,  looking  out 
over  the  sea,  saw  the  Aran  Islands  lying  to  the 
north-west,  they  were  still  but  dull  shadows  of 
islands,  unromantic  rocks.  The  car-driver,  an 
intelligent,  practical  young  fellow,  with  a  sandy 
moustache,  was,  rather  to  my  surprise,  an  Irish 
speaker,  and  I  am  afraid  I  lost  some  good  con- 
versation by  listening  in  that  language  instead  of 
allowing  myself  a  day  off  in  easy-going  English. 
I  felt  something  of  a  hypocrite,  indeed,  when,  on 
reaching  a  field-path,  he  told  us  to  get  down,  and 
gave  us  directions  as  to  how  to  reach  the  cliffs 
and  join  him  about  a  mile  farther  on  down  the 
road.  For  I  had  only  gathered  the  vaguest 
impression  of  his  story  of  easts  and  wests  when  we 
broke  away  from  him  and  out  of  sight  across  the 
grass  towards  the  cliffs. 

The  mist  had  come  down  in  walls  over  the 
sea  :  the  cliffs  themselves  rose  an  immense  wall 
of  blackness,  at  the  foot  of  which  a  greenish- 
black  tide  broke  in  a  thousand  whitenesses  and 
made  a  far  noise,  a  noise  as  distant  as  an  echo. 
Those  who  measure  their  admiration  with  a  foot- 
rule  will  tell  you  that  the  precipice  of  Moher, 
being  668  feet  high,  is  only  a  trifle  compared  with 
the  cliffs  of  Achill  and  the  cliffs  of  Donegal. 
But  the  Cliffs  of  Moher  are  sufficiently  excit- 
ing.    I  think  most  people  will  feel  a  strange  in- 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     117 

toxication,  a  strange  terror  almost,  as  they  stand 
near  the  edge  of  the  cliff  and  look  down  at  the 
sea-gulls  flying  about  its  hard  breast  with  tiny, 
distant  cries.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  saw  rocks  of 
so  pitchy  a  blackness  as  the  sea  washes  against 
here.  Perhaps  the  weird  light  was  the  cause  of 
it,  and  the  contrast  of  that  brood  of  sea-gulls 
which  clung  to  the  rocks  so  clamorously  half-way 
down  and  streamed  them  with  an  occasional 
whiteness.  One  felt  small  and  giddy  as  upon  the 
edge  of  an  abyss  as  one  looked  down  below  at 
the  sea  which,  ever  so  far  down,  cast  its  perpetual 
chains  of  pearls  at  the  rocks,  and  withdrew  them 
with  an  army  of  mutterings. 

Here  on  the  point  of  the  cliffs  is  a  broken-down 
tower  where  red  and  white  cows  shelter  in  the 
deserted  hall,  and  many  visitors  will  no  doubt 
feel  a  quickening  of  romance  at  the  sight  of  it 
till  they  look  at  the  date-stone  and  see  that  it 
is  no  older  than  the  nineteenth  century.  It 
was  built,  indeed,  by  a  neighbouring  landlord, 
Cornelius  O'Brien,  M.P.,  in  1835,  as  a  hostelry 
for  visitors,  and  it  was  he,  I  believe,  who  also  put 
up  the  wall  of  flagstones  along  the  cliffs  and 
the  stables  which  now  lie  in  ruins  near  the  road. 
Those  who  have  read  Mr.  J.  B.  Atkins's  finely- 
made  biography  of  Sir  William  Russell,  the  Irish 
journalist  who  invented  war  correspondents, 
may  remember  that  the  latter  visited  Corney 
O'Brien  at  his  residence  near  this  at  the  time  of 


ii8  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

the  Famine  in  1846,  and  heard  from  his  lips  an 
authentic  and  blood-curdling  story  of  the  O'Brien 
ghost  that  haunts  these  terrible  cliffs.  Russell 
having  during  dinner  expressed  his  admiration  of 
the  scenery  of  the  Hag's  Head  at  the  far  end  of 
the  cliffs,  Corney  later  on  bade  his  piper — he 
seems  to  have  kept  a  piper  in  the  house  like  an  old 
Gaelic  chief — retire,  and  he  said  to  his  guest  : 
"  You  like  the  Hag's  Head  ?  Well !  I  would 
not  go  there  now  if  you  were  to  give  me  a  hundred 
pounds,  and  it's  not  but  I  want  the  money." 
He  then  told  him  how  he  had  come  into  the 
property,  a  stranger  to  the  place,  and  on  his 
arrival  went  for  a  walk  to  the  cliffs  with  the 
parish  priest  with  whom  he  was  dining  that 
evening.  He  had  heard  a  tradition  of  an  old  lady 
of  the  family  who,  while  out  on  the  cliff  with  her 
grandson  and  heir,  was  "  whisked  into  the  sea 
by  a  sudden  puff  of  wind  " — a  natural  enough 
danger  in  the  place.  As  Corney  stood  looking 
down  at  the  waves,  he  was  horrified  to  feel  that 
he  was  going  over,  too.  "  I  gave  a  shout,"  he 
told  Russell,  "  and  Father  Michael  caught  me, 
or  I'd  have  been  in  the  sea  !  " 

One  would  have  thought  that  he  would  have 
been  rather  nervous  of  the  cliffs  after  that.  But 
no  :  that  very  night  he  visited  them  again.  But 
the  story  of  this  nocturnal  visit  and  what  happened 
in  the  course  of  it  is  best  told  in  Corney's  own 
words  to  Russell. 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY    119 

"Well,"  he  declared,  "as  I  was  driving  home  from  Father 
Michael's,  I  thought  that  as  it  was  a  beautiful  moonlight  night 
and  a  good  breeze  was  blowing  from  the  west,  I  would  take  a 
look  at  the  breakers — they  were  roaring  like  artillery.  So  I 
got  out  of  the  gig  and  told  the  boy  to  go  home  and  bid  a 
servant  to  wait  up  for  me.  I  struck  across  the  sward  straight 
for  the  Hag's  Head.  I  had  got  within  seventy  or  eighty  yards 
of  it  when  I  saw  on  the  very  edge  of  the  cliff  a  white  figure. 
It  was  moving ;  alive  and  no  mistake.  At  first  I  thought  it 
was  a  sheep,  but  getting  nearer  I  perceived  that  it  was  a  woman 
in  a  white  dress  with  a  white  cap  on  her  head.  Then  I 
remembered  there  was  some  talk  at  dinner  of  a  lunatic  girl  who 
had  escaped  out  of  the  asylum  at  Ennistymon.  I  made  sure 
that  it  was  she,  and  I  thought  that  I  had  just  arrived  in  time  to 
save  her  life,  poor  creature  !  My  plan  was  to  creep  quietly 
behind  her,  seize  her  in  my  arms,  drag  her  as  far  as  I  could 
from  the  edge,  then  secure  her  and  haul  her  somehow  to  the 
road.  I  had  got  close  and  was  just  about  to  lay  hold  of  her, 
when  'the  thing'  turned  on  me  such  a  face  as  no  human  being 
ever  had — a  death's  head,  with  eyes  glaring  out  of  the  sockets, 
through  tangled  masses  of  snow-white  hair !  In  an  instant, 
with  a  screech  that  rang  through  my  brain,  '  the  thing '  fell  or 
threw  itself  over  the  face  of  the  cliff. 

"  It  was  some  seconds  before  I  recovered  the  shock  and 
horror.  Then  trembling  I  crept  on  my  hands  and  knees  to  the 
verge  of  the  cliff.  I  looked  down  on  the  raging  sea.  As  I 
was  peering  down  over  the  Hag's  Head  I  saw  in  the  moonlight 
some  white  object  coming  up  the  face  of  the  cliff  straight 
towards  me.  I  am  not  superstitious  or  a  coward.  I  tried  to 
persuade  myself  it  was  a  seal  or  a  great  sea-gull,  but  presently 
arms  and  hands  were  visible — it  was  crawling  hand  over  hand 
up  the  cliff.  I  jumped  to  my  feet  and  ran  for  my  life  towards 
the  house.  As  I  ran  the  yell  *  the  thing '  gave  when  it  dis- 
appeared over  the  cliff  was  repeated.  Looking  back,  there  was 
the  dreadful  sight.  It  came  over  the  green  meadow  in  pursuit  of 
me,  came  nearer,  nearer,  not  two  hundred  yards  behind.  I  bounded 


120  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

like  a  deer  up  the  avenue,  and  the  door  was  opened  by  my  man. 
Again  the  fearful  sound  close  at  hand.  '  Shut !  shut  the 
door  !  Do  you  hear  that  ? '  The  man  heard  nothing.  I 
went  up  to  my  room ;  looked  at  my  face  in  the  glass ;  it  was 
pale,  but  it  was  not  that  of  a  madman. 

"The  windows  of  my  bedroom  looked  on  a  large  walled 
garden  ;  the  blinds  were  drawn  and  the  light  of  the  moon  fell 
through  them.  I  was  nearly  undressed  when  a  shadow  was 
thrown  on  the  counterpane  of  the  bed  from  one  of  the  windows. 
There  was  some  one  on  the  sill !  The  scream  was  repeated. 
A  brace  of  double-barrel  pistols  lay  on  the  table  by  my  pillow. 
I  fired  the  barrels,  bang  !  bang  !  bang  !  at  the  window  as  fast 
as  I  could  pull  the  trigger.  I  ran  downstairs  to  the  hall.  We 
called  up  every  soul  in  the  house,  searched  every  inch  of  the 
garden — there  was  soft  soil  under  my  window — not  a  trace  of 
a  footstep  or  a  ladder.  I  had  my  horse  saddled  at  once,  and 
rode  to  Ennistymon,  and  knocked  up  the  priest.  The  first 
question  I  asked  his  astonished  reverence  was,  '  Tell  me,  was  I 
drunk  when  I  left  you  ? '  '  No,  you  were  as  sober  as  you  are 
now,  Mr.  O'Brien  1  '  And  then  1  told  him  what  I  have  told 
you.  '  I  never,'  said  his  reverence,  '  heard  of  any  one  but  the 
O'Briens  hearing  or  seeing  her^  and  they  have  her  all  to  them- 
selves. I  can't  make  it  out.'  Nor  can  I  either,  Mr.  Russell. 
I  had  a  rail  put  up  at  the  edge  of  the  cliff  where  you 
get  the  best  view  of  the  cliffs.  I  have  been  there,  now  and 
then,    on   a   fine   day,    with    people — but  after   sunset — never ! 


Russell  declared  that  he  had  a  very  bad  night 
after  hearing  Corner's  story.  "  I  slept  but  little 
till  morning,"  he  said,  "  and  then,  as  I  was  dozing 
off,  I  was  startled  by  an  awful  cry.  It  proved  to 
be  the  preliminary  of  a  flourish  by  the  piper  for 
the  skirl  before  breakfast." 

When  one  has  got  back  to  the  road  again  and 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY    121 

driven  some  way  down  from  the  heights,  one 
comes  on  the  showiest  holy  well  I  have  yet  seen. 
It  is  in  a  kind  of  grotto  in  a  garden  beside  an 
inn,  and  outside  the  grotto-like  building  stands  a 
little  shrine.  The  walls  of  the  grotto  are  thick 
with  holy  pictures,  abominations  of  colour  re- 
presenting various  saints,  and  each  of  them  is 
signed  with  the  name  of  some  beneficiary  of  the 
blessed  properties  of  the  waters.  Other  visitors 
had  made  presents  of  rosaries,  which  were  hung 
here  and  there  from  nails.  If  you  read  the 
inscriptions  on  the  pictures,  you  will  be  surprised 
to  see  how  many  of  the  donors  are  Americans. 
A  barefooted  woman  with  a  skin  tanned  like  a 
Red  Indian's  and  a  head  of  glossy  black  hair 
greeted  us  as  we  went  in,  and  asked  us  if  we  would 
have  a  drink  from  the  well.  We  said  we  would, 
and  she  rinsed  out  a  tin  and  filled  it  from  the 
running  water  and  handed  it  to  us.  And  as, 
having  given  her  some  money,  we  went  out,  she 
called  earnest  blessings  after  us. 

The  well  is  named  after  St.  Brigid — ^"  the  Mary 
of  the  Gael,"  as  she  has  been  called.  St.  Brigid 
of  Kildare,  according  to  the  scholars,  owes  a  good 
deal  of  her  honour  in  Ireland  to  a  popular  con- 
fusion of  her  with  an  earlier  Brigid,  who  has 
been  identified  with  Dana,  the  mother  of  the 
Celtic  gods.  Brigid  was  the  goddess  of  fertility 
and  poetry,  and  the  sacred  fire,  which  the  Christian 
Brigid's  nuns  kept  alive  in  the  shrine  in  Kildare 


122  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

— a  fire  which  no  male  might  approach,  and  upon 
which  no  male  might  breathe — is,  we  are  told,  an 
inheritance  from  the  old  goddess.  There  is  no 
need  to  argue  that  these  wells  of  the  saints  which 
spring  from  every  crack  in  Ireland  also  date  back 
their  holiness  centuries  before  the  coming  of 
Christianity.  No  doubt,  they  cured  people  then. 
Certainly,  they  cure  people  still.  Rationalism 
has  turned  the  clearness  of  a  thousand  of  them 
into  mud,  and  the  rags  of  thank-offering  are  no 
longer  tied  so  profusely  on  the  thorn-bushes  that 
grow  beside  them  or  the  little  cairns  of  gratitude 
piled  up  with  a  stone  from  every  one  who  passes. 
Even  to-day,  however,  as  at  St.  David's  well  near 
Enniscorthy,  lame  men  are  to  be  found  throwing 
away  their  crutches  and  walking  away  whole, 
having  tasted  and  washed  in  the  sacred  water  ; 
and  the  holy  pictures  hung  about  St.  Brigid's 
well  were  all,  I  believe,  thanks  for  miraculous 
cures.  Still,  this  well  was  suspiciously  picturesque. 
One  could  not  help  feeling  more  of  a  tourist 
than  a  pilgrim  while  one  was  there. 

Indeed,  I  had  an  uneasy  feeling  that  it  was  a  part 
of  the  inn  garden.  I  asked  the  driver  to  come  into 
the  public-house  and  have  a  drink  before  he  went 
on,  but  he  pointed  to  a  badge  in  his  buttonhole, 
and  told  me  that  this  pledged  him  either  not  to 
touch  liquor  at  all  or  to  take  no  more  than  two 
bottles  of  stout  in  the  day.  The  young  men  of 
the  west  of  Ireland  seem  to  take  a  curious  pleasure 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     123 

in  wearing  badges  of  one  kind  and  another,  and 
the  temperance  badge,  I'm  glad  to  say — for  I 
believe  in  none  of  the  anti-Puritan  nonsense — is 
one  of  the  commonest.  When  we  drove  down  into 
Lahinch  later,  past  the  wide  stretch  of  sandy 
golf-links,  on  which  a  rare  knickerbockered  man, 
his  weapons  borne  by  his  page,  was  marching 
very  importantly  in  the  wake  of  a  ball,  we  noticed 
badges  of  one  kind  and  another  in  the  buttonholes 
of  many  of  the  boys  who  loafed  about  the  railway 
station. 

It  was  only  by  the  skin  of  our  teeth  that  we 
caught  the  train.  Had  we  missed  it,  we  could  not 
have  reached  Limerick — by  the  Kilrush  steamer, 
at  any  rate — that  night.  As  we  had  been 
driving  since  breakfast,  we  were  beginning  to 
feel  hungry,  but  there  was  not  even  a  refreshment 
bar  at  the  station.  Our  carman  generously  made 
a  dash  from  the  station  to  some  near-by  shop, 
and  was  able  to  thrust  a  few  pence  worth  of 
chocolate  in  by  the  carriage  window  before  the 
train  shook  itself  and  crept  out  of  the  station. 
My  chief  memories  of  the  long  journey  down  the 
Clare  coast  to  Kilrush  are  that  I  had  nothing 
to  eat,  and  that  every  now  and  then,  as  we  looked 
down  at  the  misty  sea,  an  island  called  Mutton 
Island  rose  out  of  a  cloud  and  mocked  us.  I  do 
not  remember  exactly  how  many  hours  it  took 
us  to  reach  Kilrush,  but  it  felt  like  half  a  day. 
There  has   been  a   strike   on   the   Clare  railway 


124  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

since  we  were  there — for  Irish  wages  are  the  lowest 
possible — and  I  see  no  reason  why  the  whole  of 
the  county  should  not  go  on  strike  against  so 
irrelevant  and  rambling  a  system.  When  we 
reached  Kilrush  at  last,  two  small  boys,  the  elder 
of  whom  looked  about  ten,  seized  our  bags  and 
bore  them  off,  till  I  became  alarmed  lest  they 
might  rupture  themselves  with  so  heavy  weights. 
Luckily,  they  had  not  gone  thirty  yards  when  a 
big  loafer  with  a  cudgel  came  up  and  dragged  the 
bags  out  of  their  hands,  and  gave  me  a  good 
excuse  for  paying  them  off.  "  Ah,  what  right 
have  they  to  be  carrying  luggage,"  he  protested 
indignantly.  "  Their  father's  a  retired  policeman, 
and  he  with  his  pension,  and  they're  in  no  want 
of  money.  It's  pure  begging.  They  ought  to 
have  more  shame  than  to  be  robbing  the  poor  of 
their  odd  pence." 

I  hoped  when  we  got  on  board  the  steamer 
there  would  be  nothing  to  do  but  loosen  a  few 
ropes  and  speed  off  up  the  Shannon  towards 
Limerick,  and,  as  the  captain  told  us  there  would 
be  no  food  to  be  had  till  the  boat  started,  we  were 
especially  anxious  to  be  gone  as  early  as  possible. 
But,  alas !  we  were  just  feeling  sure  that  we  must 
be  on  the  point  of  going,  when  the  advance-guard 
of  a  regiment  of  pigs  ran  grunting  on  to  the  quay. 
Then  there  was  a  great  scene  of  penning  in  and 
beating  with  sticks  and  squealing,  and  a  few  pigs 
would  be  herded  rebelliously  into  a  little  truck 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     125 

and  shut  in,  and  the  pulley  would  begin  rattling 
as  though  it  were  out  of  breath  with  effort,  and  a 
truck  would  be  hoisted  in  the  air  and  swung  round 
and  lowered  into  the  hold  of  the  steamer,  a  thing 
of  terror,  odour,  and  disharmony.  It  was  the 
slowest  possible  business  transferring  the  pigs 
from  the  quayside  into  the  boat,  and  when  one 
regiment  of  the  poor  dirty  beasts  was  finished, 
another  came  down  with  silly  ears  to  take  its 
place.  Ultimately,  we  got  tired  of  pig,  and,  if 
it  had  not  been  for  the  growing  smell  of  them, 
we  might  have  enjoyed  the  time  well  enough 
looking  over  at  rare  Scattery  Island,  which  lies 
a  mile  or  more  out  in  the  water  with  a  round  tower 
rising  amid  its  ruined  churches.  It  was  St. 
Senan,  a  native  of  the  county,  who,  having  retired 
with  his  monks  to  this  lonely  mile  of  island,  first 
built  a  religious  foundation  there.  Living  in 
the  sixth  century — ^he  died  about  560 — ^he  earned 
fame,  like  St.  Kevin  of  Glendalough,  for  the 
strictness  of  his  discipline.  Like  St.  Kevin,  he 
would  allow  no  woman,  however  saintly,  to  set 
foot  within  his  precinct,  and,  even  when  the 
holy  virgin  St.  Cannera,  who  was  a  relative  of  his 
own,  prayed  to  be  received  on  the  island,  he 
replied  forbiddingly — 

*'  Quid  feminis 
Commune  est  cum  monachis  ? 
Nee  te  nee  ullam  aliam 
Admittemus  in  insulam." 


126  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Moore  has  written  some  of  his  flirtatious 
nonsense  about  the  affair,  suggesting  that 

"  had  the  maid 
Till  morning's  light  delayed 
And  given  the  saint  one  rosy  smile, 
She  ne'er  had  left  his  holy  isle." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  St.  Cannera  was  on  the  point 
of  death  at  the  time  of  the  visit,  and  only  came  to 
the  island  to  receive  the  viaticum  from  her  holy 
cousin,  which  when  he  learned  he  behaved  like 
a  human  being,  and  permitted  her  to  go  ashore. 

Scattery  Island,  however,  is  famous  not  only  as 
the  scene  of  the  anti-feminist  St.  Senan's  great 
dilemma,  but  as  the  retreat  whither  the  remnant 
of  the  Danes  fled  after  Limerick  had  been  burned 
over  them  by  Brian  Boru,  and  Mahon,  his 
reigning  brother.  That  was  the  occasion  of  the 
spoiling  of  Limerick  when  the  conquerors  acquired 
as  their  booty  "  beautiful  and  foreign  saddles ; 
jewels,  gold  and  silver,  and  silks ;  soft,  youthful, 
bright  girls ;  blooming,  silk-clad  women  ;  active, 
well-formed  boys  " — when  they  slew  every  captive 
who  was  fit  for  war  and  enslaved  the  others. 
The  pagan  Danes  seem  to  have  thought  that  a 
violent  Christian  like  Brian  would  regard  a  place 
of  churches  like  Scattery  Island  as  a  sanctuary. 
Brian,  however,  was  not  such  a  stickler  for 
ecclesiasticism  as  they  imagined.  When  Mahon 
was  treacherously  murdered,  and  he  succeeded 
him,  he  forgot  everything  but  vengeance.     He 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY      127 

was  not,  as  his  chronicler  puts  it,  "  an  egg  in  place 
of  a  stone,  or  a  wisp  of  hay  in  place  of  a  club,"  and 
his  first  fierce  deed  was  to  direct  his  fleet  to  this 
same  Scattery  Island  and  overthrow  the  Danish 
power  there  in  bloodshed.  That  was  in  977, 
about  four  centuries  after  St.  Senan. 

Six  centuries  later,  in  1588,  another  wild  tragedy 
occurred  in  these  waters.  This  was  when  seven 
ships  of  the  Spanish  Armada  that  had  been  hurled 
and  rolled  and  broken  round  the  coasts  of  Scotland 
and  Ireland  sailed  out  of  the  storm  into  the 
mouth  of  the  Shannon  and  made  piteous  efforts 
to  get  some  of  their  men  ashore  at  Kilrush,  so 
that  they  might  obtain  water,  for  they  were 
dying  of  thirst,  having  had  no  fresh  supply  of 
water  since  they  left  Spain.  It  was  the  order 
of  England,  however,  that  no  mercy  should  be 
shown  to  the  Spaniards,  and  though,  in  their 
extremity,  the  Spanish  captains  offered  a  butt  of 
wine  for  every  cask  of  water,  and  indeed  most  of 
the  wealth  of  their  ships  for  as  much  as  would 
satisfy  their  needs,  they  were  sent  away  empty, 
and,  setting  sail  again,  were  soon  back  among 
the  storms  and  being  dashed  to  pieces  on  the 
merciless  rocks  of  Clare.   .  .  . 

To  steam  up  the  Shannon  on  a  day  of  wide 
prospects  is,  I  am  sure,  a  delightful  experience, 
though  even  on  the  best  of  days  I  would  rather 
make  the  voyage  on  a  steamer  that  did  not  carry 
pigs.     It  is  not  that  I  do  not  like  pigs :  I  love  the 


128  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

shape  of  them,  and  they  make  a  very  soothing 
music  except  at  times  of  emotional  crisis.  But 
the  odour  of  a  thousand  of  them  is  something 
never  meant  to  be  concentrated  in  the  hold 
of  a  single  vessel.  In  the  hold  ?  Alas !  no,  it 
escaped  from  the  hold  and  wrapped  the  boat  in  a 
kind  of  cloud  that  there  was  no  getting  away  from. 
The  day  was  sultry,  with  roaming  mists,  and  even 
when  a  hidden  sun  turned  the  fogs  into  a  soft 
gold  there  were  seldom  more  than  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  world  to  be  seen  in  any  direction.  In 
other  words,  it  was  just  SQch  a  day  as  gave  the 
pigs  possession  of  us.  It  gave  our  noses  to  them, 
and  it  gave  our  eyes  to  them,  for  there  was  often 
nothing  else  to  see.  Down  in  the  body  of  the 
ship  they  huddled  in  terror,  their  backs  all 
scarred  with  cuts  where  their  owners  had  put  their 
marks  on  them.  I  believe  decent  people  have 
been  protesting  against  the  cruel  way  in  which 
these  identification  marks  are  made  on  pigs,  and 
indeed  those  of  us  who  insist  upon  living  on  the 
corpses  of  animals  might  very  well  force  a  stoppage 
of  a  good  many  cruelties  of  marking  and  transit 
and  slaughter.  I  will  say  this  for  my  own 
sensibility  of  heart  that,  after  seeing  that  mass  of 
squalling  pigs  crying  out  for  a  kinder  world  in  the 

Limerick  steamer,  I  did  not  touch  bacon  for 

well,  for  two  days. 

Here  a  poor  porker  would  make    a    dash  for 
liberty  only  to  be  seized   by  the  tail   by  a   big 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     129 

excited  man  with  a  stick  under  his  arm.  There 
a  filth-stained  beast  would  resolutely  lie  down, 
having  taken  a  notion  that  it  could  sleep  out  the 
day  of  judgment,  and  would  risk  being  trodden 
over  by  its  fellows,  till  the  big  excited  man  came 
along  and  dragged  it  erect  again  by  the  ears, 
occasionally  dropping  an  ear  to  hit  it  a  blow  with 
the  stick,  and  raising  a  hullabaloo  infinitely  more 
violent  than  the  screechings  of  the  pig.  Snorting, 
snapping,  biting  companies  of  the  animals  would 
gradually  resign  themselves  to  the  beginnings  of 
slumber,  curled  up  cheek  on  bristled  back  and  nose 
on  buttock,  the  grunts  diminishing  into  little 
grunts  and  the  little  grunts  into  lesser  grunts, 
till  the  bliss  of  silence  seemed  about  to  descend 
on  them.  Then  some  mischievous  intruder,  a 
hairy  animal  and  young,  would  approach,  shaking 
his  ears  in  contempt  and  grunting  damnation  on 
them  for  a  race  of  slaves.  While  the  big  man  with 
the  stick  was  looking  away  and  very  patiently 
relighting  his  empty  pipe,  out  would  dart  the 
jaw  of  the  newcomer,  and  a  pig  roused  from  its 
sleep  would  be  squealing  aloud  over  a  bitten  leg. 
Stumbling  up,  it  would  incommode  another  pig, 
which  would  bite  another  pig,  which  would 
lurch  into  another  pig,  which  would  give  another 
pig  some  other  cause  of  bad  temper.  And  the 
whole  herd  would  be  awake  and  rebellious  again, 
and  the  big  man  down  among  them,  swearing  and 
fighting  for  order  with  his  stick. 
9 


130  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

It  was  the  mists,  I  am  sure,  that  concentrated 
our  senses  on  these  indecencies.     Every  now  and 
then,  however,  the  mists  rose,  and  showed  us  fair 
little  peeps  of  sunny  landscape,  warm  and  rich 
and    comfortable -looking,    with    at    intervals    a 
fine    whitewashed    farmhouse    standing    in    the 
middle   of   a   field.     At   least,  from   a    distance, 
many  of   the   farmhouses  look   as   if  they  were 
plump  in  the  middle  of  fields,  so  comparatively 
rare  are  gardens.     On  the  Limerick  shore  to  the 
south,  too,  you  get  a  look  at  some  of  the  old 
castles  in  which  Ireland — at  least  the  south  of 
Ireland — is  so  romantically  plentiful.     There  is 
the  Castle  of  Glin,  for  instance,  dominating  the 
shore  with  its  air  of  nobleness  blasted  and  shat- 
tered, when  you  have  got  well  past  the  voices  on 
the  pier  of  Tarbert.     The  Knight  of  Glin  is  one 
of  the  many  romantic  names  that  conjure  up  the 
vision   of   Elizabethan   Ireland.     It   was   in   this 
castle  that,  in  the  summer  of  1600,  he  and  his  men 
were  burst  in  upon  and  slaughtered  by  Elizabeth's 
very  capable   exterminator.   Sir    George    Carew. 
The   Irish   say   that   women   and   children  were 
massacred  after  the  fight,  and  Carew's  capacity 
for  robust  deeds  of  the  kind  is  shown  in  many  a 
page  of  the  British  State  Papers.     Carew  was  the 
honourable  and  pious  gentleman  to  whom  Cecil 
entrusted    much    of    the    murderous    work   that 
needed  doing  in  those  days  in  behalf  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty.     It  was   to  Carew  that   Cecil 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     131 

wrote,  in  regard  to  the  difficult  Fitzgerald  known 
as  the  Sugan  Earl  :  "  Take  this  from  me,  upon 
my  life,  that  whatever  you  do  to  abridge  him, 
which  you  shall  sale  to  be  done  out  of  providense, 
shall  never  be  ymputed  to  you  as  a  fault."  It 
was  Carew  again  who  seems  to  have  arranged  for 
the  poisoning  of  Red  Hugh  O'Donnell  when, 
after  the  wild  night  of  Kinsale,  he  fled  to  Spain 
to  get  help  for  Ireland.  "  O'Donnell  is  dead," 
wrote  Carew  to  Cecil,  "...  and  I  do  think 
it  will  fall  out  that  he  is  poisoned  by  James  Blake, 
of  whom  your  lordship  hath  been  formerly 
acquainted.  At  his  (Blake's)  coming  into  Spain 
he  was  suspected  of  O'Donnell  because  he  had 
embarked  at  Cork,  but  afterwards  he  insinuated 
his  access — and  O'Donnell  is  dead."  On  another 
occasion  he  employed  "  one  Amyas  an  Irishman  " 
to  murder  Florence  MacCarthy  More.  But,  after 
all,  Carew  in  all  this  was  doing  no  worse  than  his 
forerunners  and  companions  in  adventure.  Sus- 
sex had  attempted  to  poison  Shane  O'Neill,  and 
Perrott  bribed  a  poisoner  to  put  an  end  to  Fiach 
MacHugh  O'Byrne.  Indeed,  as  Dr.  P.  W.  Joyce 
says,  "  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  assassination 
was  not  merely  a  thing  of  occasional  occurrence, 
but  a  recognised  mode  of  dealing  with  Irish 
chiefs."  It  would  hardly  be  worth  stressing  the 
point  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  good-hearted 
British  novel-readers  are  so  shocked  by  poor 
Catharine    de'    Medicis    and    the    Borgias.     In 


132  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Belfast,  too,  I  am  afraid,  we  know  a  good  deal 
more  about  the  Borgias  than  about  the  Eliza- 
bethans, who  were  really  quite  as  skilful.  There's 
a  subject  of  meditation  for  you  if  you  ever  find 
yourself  looking  out  over  the  fat  lands  of  Limerick 
from  a  Shannon  steamer. 

But,  indeed,  as  you  drift  up  this  old  river,  there 
are  more  modern  subjects  of  meditation  for  the 
practical  mind.  Here  we  have  a  greater  river 
than  any  other  in  Ireland,  or  in  England  either, 
and  yet  it  seems  to  flow  in  a  perpetual  Sabbath 
of  idleness,  a  desert  for  ships.  The  voyage  from 
Kilrush  to  Limerick  took  us  longer,  I  think,  than 
the  train  journey  from  Liverpool  to  London  ; 
yet,  in  all  that  time,  we  met  but  one  lonely  ship 
that  was  being  tugged  seaward,  and  that  came 
suddenly  upon  us  out  of  the  mist  like  a  lost  ghost 
of  the  Fighting  Temeraire,  and,  ghost-like,  passed 
on  again  into  the  mist. 

The  coming  and  going  of  that  lonely  three- 
master  seemed  only  to  make  the  solitude  more 
profound.  It  was  like  being  in  a  backwater 
rather  than  on  a  great  river.  Here  we  had  a  wealth 
of  river  flowing  amid  a  wealth  of  fields,  a  king- 
dom of  rich  land  for  the  conquering ;  yet  it 
was  barren,  lifeless,  and  unprofitable  as  the  land 
through  which  Childe  Roland  fared  on  his  quest 
of  the  Dark  Tower.  Not  ugly  like  that,  or 
leprous.     The  beauty  of  the  place  was  its  tragedy. 

As  we  got  nearer  Limerick,  and  past  the  islands 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     133 

in  the  mouth  of  the  great  inlet  that  goes  up  to 
Ennis — "  Ennis  of  the  Hundred  Pubs,"  as  the 
irreverent  call  it — the  sun  was  looming  out  of 
the  mist  behind  us  like  a  red-hot  ball,  and  orange 
shadows  were  spilling  themselves  over  the  surface 
of  the  river.  By  the  time  we  came  within  view 
of  Limerick  itself  and  the  dark  hill  behind,  the 
evening  was  falling,  dim  and  lilac-coloured  :  a 
busy  population  was  promenading  up  and  down 
the  river-bank  ;  and  the  nearest  thing  that  we 
had  seen  to  a  manufacturing  city  in  this  part  of 
Ireland  rose  gloomily  beside  the  water  with 
peeping  lights. 

Now,  as  the  ballad  says,  "  Limerick  is  beautiful." 
Seeing  her  in  good  circumstances,  one  thinks  of 
her  as  a  retired  queen  of  the  four  civilisations — 
Irish,  Danish,  Norman,  and  English — in  Ireland. 
She  has  terrible  memories  of  Brian  Boru,  who,  as 
I  have  mentioned  already,  stormed  her  after  the 
battle  in  the  woods  of  SoUohod,  and  put  her 
Danish  defenders  to  the  sword,  except  the  non- 
combatants,  who  were  enslaved.  Hither  three 
centuries  later  came  Robert  and  Edward  Bruce 
to  root  out  the  Anglo-Normans,  but  in  vain  ;  it 
was  on  the  return  march — you  may  call  it  a 
flight — from  Limerick  through  many  a  wasted 
county  that  Robert  Bruce  is  related  to  have  halted 
his  whole  army  till  a  poor  washerwoman,  who  had 
suddenly  been  overtaken  with  the  pains  of  child- 
birth,  was   fit   to  be   moved — a   symbol   of   the 


134  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

gentleness  that  tempered  the  barbarity  of  those 
days.  To  most  people,  however,  Limerick  is  the 
Limerick  of  the  Williamite  wars,  the  city  of 
Sarsfield,  the  City  of  the  Broken  Treaty.  It  is 
curious  that  the  two  sieges  which  live  most 
vividly  in  the  Irish  memory — the  one  appealing 
chiefly  to  the  Nationalist  imagination,  the  other 
the  chief  glory  of  the  Unionists — should  both 
have  occurred  in  the  same  futile  war  in  which 
the  Catholic  Irish  fought  for  an  incapable 
Englishman  who  was  distrusted  by  the  Pope,  and 
the  Protestant  Irish  fought  for  a  capable  Dutch- 
man whom  a  Pope  had  subsidised.  There  is,  of 
course,  no  reason  why  Derry  and  Limerick  should 
not  shake  hands  now,  forgetting  their  old  differences 
and  remembering  their  old  heroism.  No  Orange- 
man, I  imagine,  of  however  forcible  politics,  will 
be  able  to  resist  a  certain  pleasant  thrill  as  he 
reads  of  how  Sarsfield,  the  De  Wet  of  the  Irish, 
rode  out  of  Limerick  at  night  and  cut  off  the 
siege-train  that  was  coming  up  to  help  William 
to  storm  the  city.  Lauzun,  who  was  very 
depressed  during  his  absence  from  France,  had 
said  of  Limerick  that  it  could  be  captured  by  a 
bombardment  of  roasted  apples,  but  brave  men 
proved  the  contrary  in  1690  when  William  iii. 
had  to  retreat  defeated  from  its  walls.  William 
himself  blamed  his  defeat  on  the  weather,  and 
Macaulay  echoed  him,  but  investigation  has 
shown  that  the  floods,  which  according  to  William 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     135 

lost  him  Limerick,  were  mere  inventions  of  his 
brain.  The  second  siege  of  Limerick,  which 
took  place  after  the  battle  of  Aughrim — Ireland's 
CuUoden,  as  it  has  been  called — was  less  fortunate 
for  the  defenders.  Ill-armed,  exhausted,  de- 
spairing of  help  from  France,  they  at  length 
consented  to  honourable  terms  of  surrender,  the 
English  guaranteeing  civil  and  religious  liberty 
to  the  Irish  people,  besides  arranging  that  the 
garrison  should  march  out  with  drums  beating, 
colours  flying,  and  matches  lighting.  That  was 
in  October  1691,  and  an  enormous  stone  at  the 
end  of  Thomond  Bridge  still  marks  the  place 
where  the  treaty  was  signed.  No  sooner  was  it 
signed  than  the  French  relief  expedition  arrived 
in  the  river.  But  it  was  too  late.  The  Irish 
leaders  had  already  pledged  their  honour,  and  to 
that  they  remained  faithful.  Sarsfield  has  often 
been  blamed  since  for  sacrificing  Ireland  to  his 
personal  honour  on  this  occasion,  but  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  he  bequeathed  to  Ireland  a  far 
finer  thing  in  that  example  of  a  great  soldier's 
truthfulness  than  the  mere  machinery  of  freedom 
won  by  a  lie  could  ever  have  been.  That,  of 
course,  may  only  be  cant.  But  I  am  quite  sure 
that  it  is  because  of  their  stainless  honour  that 
Sarsfield  and  Emmet  have  found  a  place  in  the 
daily  imagination  and  affections  of  Ireland  such 
as  has  never  been  given  to  the  cleverer  and  more 
effective,  but  shifty,  Shane  O'Neill. 


136  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

There  have  been  few  more  distressing  scenes 
in  the  history  of  Ireland  than  when  the  Irish 
soldiers  sailed  from  the  Shannon,  leaving  their 
crying  women  behind  them  on  the  shores,  soldiers 
of  fortune  henceforth  and  a  race  of  exiles, 

"  Fighting  in  every  clime 
For  every  cause  but  their  own." 

It  was  part  of  the  terms  of  the  surrender  that 
the  Irish  soldiers  might  either  depart  into  exile 
or  join  the  English  colours.  On  a  little  height 
outside  the  city  two  flags  were  planted,  the  royal 
standard  of  France  and  the  flag  of  England. 
The  Irish  regiments  were  to  march  out  under  their 
colours  till  they  reached  this  spot,  and  then  wheel 
round  to  the  right  or  left  towards  the  flag  under 
which  they  wished  henceforth  to  serve.  The  first 
regiment  of  guards,  it  is  said,  wheeled  round  to  the 
French  flag  in  a  body,  only  about  seven  men  going 
over  to  the  English  colours.  But  Lord  Iveagh's 
regiment,  which  came  next,  wheeled  in  its  turn 
to  take  service  under  William,  who  offered  a 
bounty  and  good  pay  to  those  who  would  fight 
for  him.  There  were  about  13,000  Irish  fighting 
men  sailed  for  France  in  the  end  of  the  year,  and 
about  5000  entered  the  army  of  England.  Ire- 
land has  been  above  most  countries  a  nation  of 
emigrants  ever  since.  As  for  the  way  in  which 
the  Treaty  of  Limerick  was  violated  by  King 
William — whether  voluntarily  or  under  pressure 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     137 

from  his  Parliament  does  not  matter — it  is  one 
of  those  "  deeds  that  won  the  Empire  "  to  which 
Dr.  Fitchett  has  not  yet  devoted  a  chapter. 
Instead  of  the  religious  liberty  which  was  promised 
and  pledged  to  her,  Ireland  got  the  Penal  Laws. 

But,  frankly.  Limerick  delighted  me  most  that 
evening,  not  with  its  fierce  past,  but  with  its 
busy  democratic  present.  I  do  not  suppose  it 
is  really  a  busy  or  democratic  city,  as  modern 
cities  go.  But  after  the  ruralism  of  Connacht 
and  Clare,  I  confess  the  sight  of  working  men 
walking  about  briskly  in  caps  made  my  heart  leap, 
as  though  I  had  suddenly  come  upon  a  piece 
of  Belfast  in  a  desert.  Munster  is  far  nearer  to 
Ulster  in  its  life  than  Connacht  is,  though  Munster 
is  the  "  farthest  south  "  of  Ireland ;  Limerick 
has  its  artisans  like  Belfast,  and  its  slum  children 
playing  on  the  steps  of  houses,  and  indeed  it  is 
a  good  deal  less  dead  to  look  at  than  an  Ulster  city 
like  Derry.  In  the  evening  the  streets  fill ;  the 
lamps  gleam  above  the  river  ;  the  soldiers  step 
out  of  the  barracks  in  King  John's  Castle  and  take 
the  air  with  such  girls  as  will  walk  with  them  ;  the 
little  shops  that  sell  candies  and  patriotic  ballad- 
sheets  in  the  poorer  parts  of  the  town  shine 
humbly  behind  their  windows  ;  O'Connell  Street 
(or  George  Street,  if  you  would  rather  call  it 
that)  keeps  what  it  can  of  its  eighteenth-century 
air  of  gentility  and  mellowness  about  it  as  the 
citizens  pace  it,  disturbed  by  no  noise  of  tram  or 


138  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

traffic ;  the  bridges  of  the  city  and  its  idle 
quays  are  a  continual  wonder.  I  meet  a  great 
many  people  who  think  Limerick  a  dull  and  ugly 
place.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  a  city  with  a  gracious 
and,  in  a  way,  remote  life  of  its  own.  I  will  not 
say  that  St.  Mary's  Cathedral  is  beautiful,  though 
it  is  historic,  and  gives  you  a  mighty  beautiful 
view  from  its  tower.  Even  King  John's  Castle 
and  all  that  battlemented  part  of  the  town,  which 
has  stood  the  assaults  of  ages,  looms,  perhaps, 
romantically  rather  than  beautifully  over  the 
river.  But  the  city  has  the  beautiful  secret  of 
charm,  like  some  fine-mannered  person  of  an 
older  generation.  .  .  . 

On  the  occasion  of  this  particular  visit,  however, 
Limerick  was  a  mere  place  to  rest  and  sup  rather 
than  a  city  to  see.  Puck  Fair  was  still  urging 
us  to  make  haste  if  we  would  be  in  time,  and  this 
meant  catching  a  train  at  six  o'clock  the  next 
morning.  Even  so,  there  was  time  for  an  hour  or 
two's  tramping  about  the  streets  and  renewing 
one's  memories.  I  had  time,  too,  for  a  late  walk 
with  a  friend — perhaps  it  was  he  who  made 
me  love  Limerick  so  well — to  see  the  Sarsfield 
monument  beside  the  Catholic  Cathedral.  "  He 
should  have  been  on  a  horse,"  said  my  friend,  as 
we  peered  through  the  darkness  at  the  statue 
with  nothing  but  the  stars  lighting  it ;  and  the 
thought  was  both  romantic  and  right. 

The  waiter  at  the  hotel  promised  to  put  a  boy 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     139 

to  sit  up  all  night  so  as  to  have  us  stirring  by  five 
in  the  morning.  He  was  a  genial  man  of  that 
exceptional  appearance  which  is  always  welcomed 
by  Englishmen  as  "  typically  Irish."  When  we 
had  stayed  at  the  hotel  before,  he  had  told  me 
all  about  his  family.  "  I  have  a  little  brigade  of 
eight,  sir,"  he  had  said — "  four  Irish  men  and  four 
Irish  women,  all  learning  Irish  or  going  to  learn 
it.  And  isn't  it  a  strange  thing,  they  to  be 
growing  up  knowing  the  language  of  their  country 
and  I  not  to  have  a  word  of  it,  but  '  Turrum 
pogue.'  ^  I'm  not  an  Irishman  at  all,  sir."  I 
asked  him  now  how  the  eight  were  getting  on. 
''  They're  nine  now,  sir,"  he  said,  with  a  twinkle, 
as  he  cleared  away  some  spoons  and  forks  to  make 
room  for  the  dish  of  salmon-steaks. 

Next  morning,  we  were  up  before  the  cows,  and 
slipping  out  of  the  town  by  six  o'clock.  The 
fields  were  bright  in  the  early  sun,  with  little 
local  mists  wandering  among  them  as  on  the 
previous  day,  and,  as  the  morning  grew  older, 
the  mists  and  the  sun  fought  in  mid-air  and  the 
mists  won.  There  is  a  comfortable  lush  beauty 
about  the  County  of  Limerick  that  makes  it 
very  pleasant  to  travel  in  after  the  desolation  of 
Connacht.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  invaders 
spoiled  this  patch  of  river  and  towers  and  trees 
so  determinedly,  for  it  must  be  one  of  the  richest 
parts  of  Ireland.     I  have  even  heard  it  said  that  it 

1  Tabhair  dhom  pog  (Give  me  a  kiss). 


140  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

is  too  rich,  and  that  more  choice  butter  comes 
from  the  milk  of  cows  that  have  pastured  on  leaner 
soil.  But  I  know  nothing  about  that.  Originally, 
we  had  intended  to  leave  the  train  at  Listowel  and 
take  the  monorail  to  Ballybunion,  the  Kerry 
watering-place  which  lies  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Shannon.  The  name  of  the  place,  of  course,  is 
against  it  :  nothing  could  show  the  incom- 
patibility between  English  and  Irish  better  than 
the  way  in  which  charming  Irish  names  are  made 
ludicrous  in  their  adoption  into  the  new  tongue. 
Baile  Bun  Dha  Abhainn — the  Town  at  the  Mouth 
of  Two  Rivers — is  attractive  and  musical,  if  you 
know  how  to  pronounce  it.  Ballybunion  is,  from 
its  name,  the  sort  of  place  you  would  expect  to 
find  Matt  Hannigan's  Aunt  of  the  song  spending 
her  Easter  Monday. 

I  forget  whether  it  was  at  Tralee  or  at  a  later 
junction  that  I  was  foolish  enough  to  ask  a  railway 
porter  if  we  were  all  right  for  Killorglin.  "  No," 
he  replied ;  "  hurry  up.  Your  train's  over  there." 
And  he  seized  our  bags,  hustled  us  across  to 
another  platform,  and  banged  us  into  a  nice 
newly-varnished  train  with  corridor  carriages, 
which  almost  immediately  rolled  out  of  the 
station. 

I  marvelled  at  the  luxury  and  the  fresh- 
paintiness  of  a  train  in  a  little  local  railway  in 
the  County  Kerry,  but  I  did  not  for  a  long  time 
realise  that  a  horrible  accident  had  befallen  us. 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     141 

After  awhile,  however,  I  noticed  that  the  names 
of  the  stations  we  were  passing  had  an  unfamiliar 
look.  I  turned  to  a  map  to  find  an  explanation. 
The  map  told  me  at  once.  We  were  in  the  wrong 
train.  We  were  doing  what  I  had  prided  myself 
I  had  never  yet  done  :  we  were  going  to 
Killarney.  That  wretched  porter  had  listened 
only  to  the  first  syllable  of  the  name  I  had  given 
him.  He  had  taken  for  granted  that  Killarney 
was  the  only  Kill  in  those  parts  that  any  stranger 
would  be  likely  to  ask  about.  I  groaned  as  I 
foresaw  that  the  fair  at  Killorglin  would  be  over 
by  the  time  we  arrived  there,  and  here  we  were 
being  borne  miles  away  from  it  to  a  miserable 
tourist  resort  that  people  sing  about  in  the 
music-halls.  There  is  a  real  Killarney,  I  know, 
where  real  people  live  and  work  and  tell  stories 
round  the  fire,  and  think  more  of  the  Irish  revival 
than  of  travellers'  tips,  but  that  Killarney  I  would 
have  no  chance  of  seeing  from  a  hotel.  The 
Killarney  the  train  was  bearing  us  into  was  the 
Killarney  of  the  lakes  and  dells,  the  Killarney  of 
the  tune  you  hear  so  often  from  the  man  who 
plays  the  dulcimers  outside  public-houses.  There 
was  no  doubt  about  that  as  soon  as  thetrainstopped, 
and  a  mauling  mass  of  hotel-touts  in  peaked  caps 
gathered  round  our  carriage  door,  waving  little 
bills  of  prices — Bed  and  breakfast,  5s.  6d.  Bed 
and  breakfast,  6s.  Bed  and  breakfast,  6s.  6d. 
Tea,   with  bread,   butter,   jam,  and  two   boiled 


142  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

eggs,  IS.  6d.  ;  and  so  forth — into  our  faces. 
One  man  would  clutch  my  bag  ;  another  would 
clutch  the  rugs ;  another  would  clutch  anything 
that  was  left ;  and  another  would  clutch  me. 
They  seemed  to  be  shouting  the  name  of  every 
hotel  in  Ireland  at  us.  I  kept  shouting  back 
at  them  as  loud  as  I  could,  "  I  don't  want  to  go  to 
Killarney  !  "  Either  they  did  not  hear  me,  or  it 
made  no  impression  on  them,  for  they  still  kept 
jabbering  about  the  conveniences  and  cheapness 
of  their  respective  hotels.  Then  I  smiled  at  them, 
and  said,  in  a  quite  determined  everyday  voice, 
"  I  don't  want  to  go  to  Killarney."  They  looked 
puzzled  at  first,  and  then  they  gathered  closer  with 
craning  necks,  as  though  to  get  the  best  view 
possible  of  the  lunatic  who  was  standing  on  the 
platform  of  Killarney  station  and  resolutely 
saying  that  he  didn't  want  to  go  to  Killarney. 
"  Where  is  it  you  want  to  go  ?  "  one  of  them 
asked  at  last,  when  he  had  got  the  better  of  his 
amazement.  "  We  want  to  go  to  Killorglin," 
I  explained.  "  We  want  to  go  to  Puck  Fair  ;  we 
were  put  into  the  wrong  train."  "  Are  yez  going 
to  the  Puck  ?  "  "  They're  going  to  the  Puck." 
"  Is  it  to  the  Puck  yez  are  going  ?  "  came  in  a 
score  of  voices  in  all  sorts  of  surprise,  and  the 
touts  all  began  grinning,  as  if  it  were  the  best 
joke  in  the  world. 

"  The  Puck  doesn't  begin  till  to-morrow,"  a 
freckled,  red-headed  man  assured  us.     "  I'll  be 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     143 

running  a  party  over  from  the  hotel  in  the 
morning.  Won't  you  have  a  look  at  the  lakes 
while  you're  here,  and  Fll  drive  you  over  in  the 
morning  ?  " 

Perhaps  we  thought  he  was  lying.  But,  even 
if  we  had  believed  him,  it  is  possible  we  would  not 
have  stayed  another  moment  at  Killarney.  For 
one  thing,  there  was  this  saturnalia  of  touting 
which  was  our  introduction  to  the  place.  And, 
for  another  thing,  the  day  was  leaden,  and  all 
the  colour  had  been  dulled  out  of  the  hills.  On 
such  a  day,  even  the  loveliest  places  in  the  world 
would  have  been  like  a  beautiful  woman's  eyes 
hidden  behind  smoked  spectacles,  or  like  jewels 
lying  at  the  bottom  of  a  basin  of  dirty  water. 
Hills  are  not  hills  except  in  exquisite  lights,  and 
lakes  are  no  more  wonderful  than  circles  drawn 
by  an  infant,  unless  there  are  fine  and  curious 
skies  over  them.  So  there  were  really  any  number 
of  reasons  why  we,  having  been  brought  by  destiny 
to  Killarney,  would  not  so  much  as  look  at  Kil- 
larney. But,  probably,  base  temptation  would 
have  overcome  us,  and  we  would  have  allowed 
ourselves  to  be  trotted  and  paddled  round  the 
lakes  even  as  other  men  and  women,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  vision  of  the  many-voiced,  many- 
coloured  fair  melting  into  nothingness  in  the 
streets  of  Killorglin. 

Killorglin,  we  discovered,  we  could  not  reach 
till  evening  if  we  put  ourselves  into  the  hands  of 


144  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

the  railway  company  and  made  back  for  the 
junction  again.  But  if  we  could  get  a  car,  and 
were  willing  to  face  a  drive  of  some  fourteen 
miles,  we  might  strike  across  country  to  it.  "  I'll 
take  you  for  a  pound,"  says  one  carman,  when  he 
heard  that  we  proposed  to  do  this.  "  I'll  do  it 
for  eighteen  shillings,"  cried  another.  A  little 
fellow  broke  through  the  legs  of  the  company. 
"  I  know  a  man  who'll  do  it  for  ten,"  he  said. 
He  then  caught  up  everything  he  could  lay  his 
hands  on,  and  made  for  the  exit  from  the  station, 
and  hoisted  our  luggage  on  to  a  car  outside,  till 
the  driver  of  it  came  up  protesting  that  he  at 
least  had  never  consented  to  go  over  to  Killorglin 
for  ten  shillings,  and  he  was  certainly  going  to  do 
nothing  of  the  sort. 

"  Here,"  called  a  black-visaged  young  fellow  in 
the  car  next  to  him,  waving  his  whip  to  us,  "  I'll 
do  it  for  twelve  shillings."  That,  with  a  tip, 
seemed  a  reasonable  proposal,  and  our  luggage, 
straps,  and  books  were  once  more  hauled  and 
tumbled  from  hand  to  hand.  It  was  at  this  stage 
of  the  journey,  I  think,  that  I  must  have  lost  the 
fourth  volume  of  Frazer's  Totemism  and  Ex- 
ogamy, a  book  that  I  had  been  trying  to  read  in 
snatches  amid  the  distractions  of  Galway  races. 
I  often  wonder  who  found  that  odd  volume. 
Reader,  if  it  was  you,  be  a  Christian  and  return 
it,  and  I  promise  to  send  you  a  copy  of  St, 
Bernard  on  Consideration  in  exchange. 


CLIFFS  OF  MOHER  TO  KILLARNEY     145 

So  eager  were  we  to  be  on  the  way  that  we  did 
not  even  wait  to  take  lunch,  though  w^e  had  been 
fasting  since  our  five-o'clock  breakfast.  We  sent 
in  to  a  grocer's  shop  for  some  biscuits,  and  while 
we  were  sitting  outside  on  the  car  a  fellow,  who 
took  us  apparently  for  a  honeymoon  couple, 
came  up  and  tried  to  sell  us  white  heather.  It 
was  wicked  not  to  buy  it,  but  we  were  really 
very  angry  with  Killarney.  The  fellow  was 
equally  angry  with  us.  For,  after  going  a  few 
yards  away,  he  turned  round  and  yelled  "  Good 
luck  !  "  at  us  with  a  most  satirical  vehemence. 
I  nodded  gratefully.  "  Good  luck  !  "  he  re- 
peated violently  ;  "  good  luck  !  "  People  began 
to  look  at  us  curiously  out  of  the  shop-doors. 
"  Good  luck  !  "  he  shouted  again.  Fortunately, 
at  that  moment  our  driver  appeared  with  the 
biscuits  and  his  own  dinner  and  a  feed  of  oats 
for  the  horse  to  put  in  the  well  of  the  car,  and 
in  another  minute  or  two  we  were  trotting  gaily 
out  of  the  town  and  out  past  the  gateways  of  the 
big  hotels  for  the  motorists,  and  peeping  over  a 
hedge  or  a  wall  at  a  glimmer  of  one  of  the  lakes. 
It  was  a  narrow  escape,  a  very  narrow  escape. 


CHAPTER   V 

PUCK  FAIR 

KiLLORGLiN,  a  precipitous  town,  is  for  a  day,  or 
perhaps  even  two  days  in  the  year,  the  most 
interesting  place  in  Ireland.  Puck  Fair  occupies 
for  an  interval  every  August  the  hill  upon  which 
the  main  street  is  built,  and  a  puck,  or  goat,  is 
throned  at  the  head  o£  the  town  high  above  the 
Kerry  men  and  women  who  wander  in  confused 
black  herds  among  the  streets.  It  is  this  goat 
which  gives  its  name  and  its  chief  distinction  to 
the  fair.  Like  an  object  of  worship,  it  stands  on 
its  lofty  two-storied  platform  of  boards,  a  creature 
of  monstrous  horns,  a  prisoner  bound  with  cords 
for  all  the  clumsily-arranged  laurels  and  green 
things  that  are  there  to  do  it  honour.  The 
platform  is  a  solid  affair  mounted  on  poles  as 
high  as  the  mast  of  a  ship,  and  it  is  on  the  top 
storey,  near  the  level  of  the  roofs  of  the  houses, 
that  the  eponymous  Puck  stands  and  accepts  the 
shouting  and  the  laughter  of  the  fair. 

A  number  of  red  storm-lanterns  hang  among  the 

decorating  leaves  to  give  a  country  illumination 

146 


PUCK  FAIR  147 

in  the  darkness,  and  the  whole  steep  little  town 
wears  an  air  of  country  festivity. 

Across  every  entrance  to  the  place,  as  we  drove 
in  on  our  car,  hung  an  arch  of  greeting,  with  an 
Irish  motto  of  morality  or  welcome.  Go  saoradh 
Dia  Eire  (God  save  Ireland),  Eire  gan  meisce, 
Eire  gan  spleadhachas  (Ireland  sober,  Ireland 
free),  Ri  na  gcnoc  go  deo  (The  King  of  the 
Mountains  for  ever),  Ciad  mile  failte  go  h-aonach 
an  fhuic  (A  hundred  thousand  welcomes  to  Puck 
Fair),  Sinn  Fein,  Sinn  Fein  amhdin  (Ourselves, 
ourselves  alone) — these  were  some  of  the  signs 
that  gave  one  a  welcome  not  only  to  the  fair  but 
to  an  awakening  Ireland. 

When  we  arrived  in  the  town.  Puck  Fair  was, 
as  it  were,  beginning  to  move.  The  next  day, 
everybody  said,  was  to  be  the  big  day,  but  already 
the  street  on  the  ridge  of  the  town  was  full  of 
rushing  horses — horses  torn  by  the  halter  pell- 
mell  through  the  shifting  crowd  with  excited 
bargainers  hanging  on  to  their  flanks.  Selling 
and  buying  were  engaged  in  like  hostilities.  Be- 
neath the  trees  on  the  muddy  station  road,  the 
prospective  buyer  would  make  his  offer  under  his 
breath  to  the  man  with  the  halter,  and  the  latter, 
shouting  inarticulately  and  with  excited  eyes, 
would  dash  his  horse  off  recklessly  through  the 
encircling  crowd  of  spectators,  looking  as  though 
he  had  received  an  insult  which  nothing  but  the 
shedding  of  blood  could  wipe  out.     The  buyer 


148  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

stood  still  for  a  moment,  staring  after  his  adversary 
with  perplexed  brows,  and  then,  lifting  his  stick, 
he  called  after  him  the  invariable  Kerry  summons, 
"  Come  here,  I  want  you  " — a  summons  always 
pronounced  rapidly  with  the  effect  of  a  single 
word.  The  owner  of  the  horse,  however,  was 
still  beating  off  with  an  indignant  back  showing, 
and  it  was  with  apparent  reluctance  that  he 
allowed  himself  to  be  brought  to  a  stop  by  some 
volunteer  go-between.  Then  the  murmur  of 
conversation  that  you  could  not  catch  would 
begin  again,  negotiations  would  once  more  be 
broken  off  with  a  shout,  the  crowd  would  make 
way  for  a  departing  beast,  and  the  whole  comedy 
be  rehearsed  again  till  one  of  the  bargainers  got 
tired  of  it,  and  the  horse  was  either  finally  bought 
or  finally  refused  at  the  price  offered. 

Killorglin  and  that  part  of  Kerry  is  at  first 
sight  a  disappointment  to  strangers.  For  one 
thing,  there  is  no  fantasy  in  the  dress  of  the  people, 
no  local  fashion,  nothing,  indeed,  but  the  poorest 
imitation  shoddy.  Occasionally  women  wear  the 
grey  Galway  shawl,  but  the  thing  is  not  part  of  a 
ritual  here.  In  Galway,  in  Mayo,  in  Donegal, 
one  seems  at  moments  to  be  walking  amid  the 
outward  and  visible  signs  of  a  distinct  Irish 
civilisation.  In  this  peninsula  of  Kerry,  the  old 
civilisation  has  clothed  itself  in  cheapness  and 
colourlessness  :  it  has  an  air  of  crooked  forget- 
fulness. 


PUCK  FAIR  149 

There  is  a  proverb  which  describes  Kerry  as 
being  the  county  of  big  men  and  little  cows,  but 
though  the  little  black  and  red  cows  were  there  in 
plenty,  the  men  at  the  fair  seemed  scarcely  to 
justify  the  proverb. 

But  then  I  was  in  a  prickly  mood.  I  had  lost 
that  volume  of  Totemism  and  Exogamy,  and 
had  been  taken  against  my  will  to  Killarney, 
and  had  been  up  since  five,  and  there  was  an 
atmosphere  about  which  was  neither  gloom  nor 
shine,  but  was  as  though  the  air  needed  washing 
and  a  leaden  sun  were  trying  dully  to  break 
through  it  on  a  shabby  world.  Then,  in  the 
train  of  these  things,  my  vanity  got  a  blow.  I 
noticed  a  public-house  with  a  long  poem  in  Irish 
scribbled  in  paint  along  the  face  of  its  upper 
storey.  I  went  inside  and  asked  for  something  to 
drink  in  what  I  believed  to  be  the  Irish  language. 
The  woman  of  the  house,  thin  of  face  and  dark  of 
brow,  looked  at  me  suspiciously.  "  What  is  it 
you  want,  sir  ?  "  she  said.  Crushed,  I  repeated 
the  order  in  the  Belfast  dialect  of  English.  When 
she  had  given  me  what  I  wanted,  I  thought  I 
would  try  to  practise  my  Irish  again,  so  I  said  to 
her  in  the  best  Ollendorf  :  "  Nach  labhrann  tu 
Gaedhilg  ?  "  (Do  you  not  speak  Irish  ?).  She 
looked  at  me  curiously  again,  as  she  wiped  the 
lead-covered  bar  with  a  soaking  clout.  "  Lab- 
hrann "  (I  do),  she  said  shortly  :  then  with  a 
sharp  directness, she  demanded:  "  Are  you  English, 


150  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

please  ?  "  "  No,"  I  said  ;  "  why  ?  "  "I  thought 
by  your  accent  you  must  be  English,"  she  declared. 
After  that  I  gave  it  up.  I  remained  in  the  shop 
in  silence  for  a  minute  or  two  longer  to  finish 
whatever  I  was  drinking,  and  then,  raising  my 
hat  with  chill  dignity,  went  forth  into  a  clouded 
world. 

Puck  Fair  began  in  earnest  the  next  morning. 
One  awoke  to  a  confused  clamour  of  human  voices 
and  cattle  roaring  and  the  cracking  of  sticks  on 
hides  and  the  hurry  of  herds  through  mud  (for 
it  had  been  raining  in  the  night)  and  horses 
pulled  up  suddenly  by  their  riders — a  noise  oi 
selling  and  buying  in  which  were  mingled  the 
voices  of  the  mountebank,  the  cheapjack,  the 
seller  of  dulse,  and  the  beggar  at  his  prayers. 

The  beggar  was  especially  uproarious.  He 
spent  a  good  part  of  the  day  on  his  knees  on  the 
road  outside  our  hotel.  He  was  a  powerful  blind 
man  with  a  wisp  of  grey  beard — grey  that  had 
once  been  a  Tartarean  black — and  he  carried 
about  a  bottle  of  straw  with  him  and  knelt  on 
this  on  the  muddy  footpath  or  road  whenever 
he  felt  moved  to  lift  his  voice  in  prayer.  Round 
his  neck  hung  a  printed  sign  with  the  legend  : 
''  Pray  for  the  repose  of  the  departed  souls  of 
your  friends."  It  was  by  the  proxy  of  this  blind 
beggar,  however,  you  were  expected  to  perform 
this  office.  Baring  his  head  and  lifting  his  corpse- 
like face  towards  the  sky,  he  shouted  out  a  long 


PUCK  FAIR  151 

rigmarole  that  was  half  a  petition  to  the  passers-by 
and  half  a  prayer  to  the  Almighty.  "  I  ask  you 
for  the  love  of  God,"  he  called  out,  emptying  his 
lungs  in  a  great  Cork  brogue.  "  Give  a  penny 
to  a  poor  stone-blind  man  and  he  without 
sight." 

Then  his  brows  got  a  knitted  earnestness,  and 
he  raised  his  voice  higher,  as  though  feeling  that 
Heaven  was  far  off. 

"  That  God  may  bless  you,"  he  cried,  "  and 

that  Jesus  may  bless  you,  and  that  the  Blessed 

Virgin  may  bless  you,  and  that  St.  Joseph  may 

bless  you,  and  the  holy  saints,  and  that  God  may 

save  the  soul  of  your  father  and  the  soul  of  your 

mother  and  the  soul  of  your  sister  and  the  soul 

of    your    brother."     Then,    changing    his    voice 

again,  sometimes  even    dropping  it  to  common 

conversation,  "  I  ask  you  for  the  love  of  God. 

Give  a  penny  to  a  poor  stone-blind  man  and  he 

without  sight."     And  the  same  flow  of  petitions 

would   go   on    over   and   over   again,    while    the 

mingling  crowds  went  by  slowly  and  with  irregular 

feet.     His  was    evidently  a  lucrative  profession. 

I  saw  a  priest  stop  to  put  a  sixpence  in  his  hand — 

a  thing  worth  mentioning,  perhaps,  for  those  who 

can  see  no  good  in  the  priests  make  a  dogma  of 

the  statement  that  no  priest  ever  gave  a  poor  man 

so  much  as  a  penny. 

I  spoke  to  the  old  fellow  when  he  was  resting 
from   his   prayers,    and,   like    everybody   else   in 


152  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Killorglin,  he  lamented  bygone  times  when  Puck 
Fair  was  something  like  a  fair. 

"  I  remember  the  time,"  he  said,  like  a  man 
telling  of  departed  glories,  "  when  there  would  be 
five  or  six  blind  men  like  myself  at  this  fair." 

"  Where  are  they  now  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Ah  !  "  he  sighed,  "  the  maxim  of  the  old 
people  is  gone  out  of  the  country." 

But  whether  they  had  gone  in  coffins  or  the 
emigrant  ship  he  did  not  say. 

I  heard  the  same  story  of  falling-off  in  a  little 
low-doored  bread-shop  where  I  went  to  buy  a 
paper.  There  was  a  gentle  woman  sitting  behind 
the  counter-load  of  loaves,  a  woman  of  that  patient 
and  pervasive  kindliness  which  hangs  like  an 
emanation  round  so  many  Irish  mothers.  Seated 
there  in  the  low  light,  she  was  a  figure  of  a  kind 
of  still  religious  beauty.  She  had  sleek  hair  as 
black  as  coals  and  eyes  as  black  as  coals  looking 
gently  out  on  the  stir  of  the  world.  Her  lament 
over  the  past,  however,  like  most  Irish  laments, 
was  not  entirely  gentle.  At  least,  it  had  none  of 
the  whining  sort  of  gentleness  ;  hers  was  the 
gentleness  of  the  warrior  woman.  She  recalled 
days  when  Puck  Fair  was  a  scene  of  thronging, 
thrilling  life — days  when  the  tinkers  invaded  the 
town  like  an  army  and  possessed  it  for  a  week. 

''  Ah  !  "  she  said  admiringly,  patting  the  head 
of  a  five-year-old  child  that  toddled  up  to  offer 
her  a  nail  or  a  button  or  something,  "  they  used 


PUCK  FAIR  153 

to  be  the  strong,  rough  people,  the  tinkers.  They 
were  the  Hfe  of  the  fair." 

"  And  do  they  not  come  here  at  all  now  ?  "  I 
asked,  my  spirits  falling,  for  I  had  looked  forward 
to  the  congregation  of  the  tinkers. 

She  assured  me  that  there  had  not  been  a  tinker 
seen  in  Killorglin  since  the  Boer  War. 

"  They  say,"  she  declared,  unable  to  resist 
the  temptation  of  a  fine  story,  "  that  all  the 
tinkers  went  to  the  war  and  got  killed.  .  .  . 
They  were  great  people  for  a  fight,"  she  went  on, 
with  lit  eyes,  as  she  remembered  the  better  days. 
"  You  would  see  them  with  the  sticks  up  and 
their  faces  bleeding,  and,  the  minute  after,  they 
would  be  going  off  for  a  drink  together."  She 
shook  her  head  pensively.  "  The  tinkers  were 
a  forgiving  people,"  she  said.  "  They  were 
good  people  now,  were  they  not,  to  be  so  for- 
giving ?  " 

It  was  the  woman  in  the  bread-shop  who  gave 
an  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  goat  ceremony 
at  Puck  Fair.  A  puck,  she  said,  was  the  first  thing 
sold  at  the  first  fair  that  was  held  at  Killorglin, 
and  ever  since  then  the  fair  was  called  after  it. 
The  puck  used  to  stand  on  the  top  of  the  old 
castle  in  the  middle  of  the  town  during  the  fair. 
The  old  castle  was  pulled  down  some  years  ago 
to  make  way  for  a  bank,  and  since  that  time  they 
had  put  up  a  scaffolding  for  the  goat  to  stand  on. 
They  used  to  put  Puck  up  three  or  four  days  before 


154  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

the  fair,  she  said,  but  there  had  been  a  great 
falling-off. 

Outside  in  the  streets,  opposing  rills  of  lads 
and  their  golden  girls,  of  eager-faced  sellers 
with  sticks,  and  housewives  with  respectable 
hand-baskets,  met  and  flowed  through  and  past 
each  other.  For  those  who  had  no  experience  of 
the  older  days,  and  who  had  quieter  tastes  in 
drama  than  raised  sticks  and  bloody  faces,  the 
scene  was  sufficiently  lively.  There  were  tinkers 
there,  too,  to  belie  the  Boer  War  legend  of  the 
woman  of  the  bread-shop. 

One  of  them  stood  at  the  corner  of  a  road 
leading  past  the  market-square.  Horseless  carts, 
boxes,  and  all  sorts  of  things  lined  the  gutter,  and 
this  big  fellow  had  found  an  upturned  barrel, 
on  the  end  of  which  he  spread  out  the  four  aces 
of  a  pack  of  cards  as  a  preliminary  to  a  gamble. 
He  was  a  most  winning  rogue,  not  swarthy  like 
a  gipsy,  but  dark  like  a  western  Irishman  ;  he 
had  irresistible  blue  eyes  and  a  laughing  face,  as 
he  called  on  the  passers-by  to  come  and  stake 
their  money.  The  game  was  to  guess  which  suit 
would  turn  up  when  the  pack  was  cut  :  he  gave 
you  two  to  one  against  any  suit  you  liked. 

"  It's  a  fair  game,"  he  kept  crying,  as  he 
shuffled  the  cards.  "  It's  a  fair  game — the 
fairest  game  in  Ireland." 

I  said  the  tinker  was  irresistible,  but  the  country 
people  who  crowded  round  and  looked  at  the  four 


PUCK  FAIR  iss 

aces  over  each  other's  shoulders  apparently  did 
not  find  him  so,  for  they  allowed  him  to  go  on 
shuffling  the  cards  and  soothering  that  it  was  a 
fair  game,  the  fairest  game  in  Ireland,  without 
making  any  move  to  test  it. 

At  length,  a  little  old  farmer  in  a  low  hat,  an 
old  fellow  with  a  coarse  suit  hanging  on  his  body 
and  coarse  whiskers  bushing  from  his  cheeks,  a 
shrewd,  sandy,  boorish  old  fellow  with  an  ash- 
plant  undei  his  arm,  who  was  standing  on  an 
empty  box  and  cutting  tobacco  for  his  pipe, 
fumbled  for  a  while  in  one  of  his  pockets  and 
brought  out  a  penny,  which  he  put  down  with  a 
deliberate  carelessness  on  the  ace  of  spades.  The 
tinker  offered  him  the  pack  to  cut,  and  sure  enough 
he  cut  a  spade.  The  tinker  brought  out  a  handful 
of  coppers  and  gave  him  two  along  with  the  penny 
on  the  ace  of  spades  with  the  air  of  a  man  who 
really  enjoyed  handing  out  money. 

"  Come  on,"  he  appealed  to  all  the  bystanders, 
"  now's  your  chance  to  make  your  fortune.  Two 
to  one  against  any  card  on  the  table.  It's  a  fair 
game,  I  tell  you,  it's  a  fair  game.  It's  the  fairest 
game  in  Ireland." 

The  old  farmer,  whose  rocky  face  had  almost 
quivered  into  a  smile  when  he  was  handed  the 
threepence,  carefully  put  down  a  penny  again 
on  the  ace  of  spades.  So  intensely  did  he  seem 
to  come  alive  for  the  moment  that  one  felt  as 
though  one  had  suddenly  come  on  a  small  duel — 


156  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

a  duel  between  Beauty  and  the  Beast.  There 
was  even  the  shadow  of  a  shade  of  excitement 
as  the  old  farmer  cut  the  cards  again,  and  showed 
us  a  diamond. 

"  Turn  about's  fair  play,"  said  the  tinker, 
putting  the  penny  in  his  pocket.  "  Try  again. 
There's  no  deception  about  this  game.  I  tell 
you,  this  is  the  fairest  game  in  Ireland." 

He  looked  up  hopefully  at  the  old  man,  but  he 
had  not  reckoned  with  the  thrift  of  the  peasant. 
No  one  looking  at  the  grave  and  grumpy  figure 
on  the  box,  cutting  tobacco  once  more  with  a 
penknife,  would  have  thought  that  he  was  even 
conscious  of  the  card-game  which  was  going  on 
beside  him — much  less  that  he  had,  only  a 
moment  before,  been  caught  in  the  net  of  gambling. 
He  had  become  individualised  for  a  moment  into 
a  sportsman,  but  he  had  sunk  again  into  a  piece  of 
nature,  and  was  no  more  to  be  appealed  to  than  the 
sea  or  the  stones  in  the  road. 

"  Revenge  is  sweet,"  the  tinker  wooed  him. 
"  Now's  your  chance." 

But  the  farmer  did  not  even  look  as  if  he  heard  ; 
he  slowly  rubbed  the  tobacco  in  his  hands  with 
the  abstracted  air  of  a  Presbyterian  elder  who  did 
not  quite  approve  of  the  gaieties  of  the  fair. 
Then,  when  he  had  his  pipe  filled  and  lighted, 
he  came  stiffly  and  gingerly  down  off  the  box,  and 
without  looking  at  anybody  made  his  way  off 
through  the  crowd,  a  triumph  of  caution,  a  man 


PUCK  FAIR  157 

who  would  henceforth  have  the  winning  of  a 
penny  from  a  tinker  to  add  to  his  autobiography. 
Luckily  the  tinker  had  a  sense  of  humour.  He 
had  ground  of  complaint  against  the  old  man  for 
unsportsmanlike  conduct  ;  but  the  little  comedy 
of  prudence  had  been  too  exquisite  to  leave  any 
room  for  resentment.  Waves  of  laughter  broke 
in  the  tinker's  eyes ;  he  laughed  and  we  all  laughed. 
We  laughed  until  the  tinker  remembered  the 
serious  business  of  the  fair,  and  in  the  midst  of  his 
laughter  began  once  more  to  call  out  his  invitation 
to  the  world  in  general  :  "  This  is  a  fair  game, 
ladies  and  gentlemen  —  the  fairest  game  in 
Ireland." 

I  will  not  tell  you  how  much  I  lost  to  that 
hearty  young  man  just  because  he  had  an  irre- 
sistible sense  of  humour. 

All  down  the  street,  wherever  there  were  not 
people,  there  were  booths  or  roulette  tables  or 
shooting-ranges  or  some  other  crowded  institute 
of  gambling.  Right  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  just 
under  the  horned  puck,  an  auctioneer  of  old 
clothes  was  standing  on  a  platform  with  trousers, 
waistcoats,  shirts,  saddles,  overcoats,  waterproofs, 
and  all  other  manner  of  human  necessaries 
scattered  at  his  feet  or  hanging  on  a  huge  sort 
of  clothes-horse  at  one  side  of  him.  He  stood 
in  his  shirt  sleeves,  a  square-shouldered,  red- 
moustached,  hair-oiled  young  man,  a  man  with 
a  loud  gold  watch-chain  running  across  his  waist- 


158  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

coat.  He  had  a  somewhat  fiery  look,  but  his 
business  demanded  a  constant  flow  of  good-humour 
and  auctioneer's  wit,  and  good-humour  flowed 
out  of  him  hke  water  out  of  a  spring.  It  flowed 
out  of  him,  too,  in  an  indefinable  much-maligned 
accent  which  made  men  in  the  crowd  turn  to 
their  neighbours  and  nod  knowingly  :  "  He's 
from  the  north." 

He  was  trying  to  sell  a  tweed  overcoat  which 
he  had  slung  on  his  arm,  and  somebody  had  just 
made  a  low  bid  for  it.  The  auctioneer  listened 
derisively. 

"  Seven  shillings  ?  "  he  repeated,  with  simulated 
incredulity.  "  The  shirt  you'll  wear  at  your  wake 
will  cost  more  than  that.  And  I  hope,"  he  added, 
with  a  satirical  nod  at  the  bidder — "  I  hope  the 
corpse  will  look  better  than  the  patient." 

While  the  crowd  was  laughing,  he  took  up  a 
long  white  waterproof  coat  and  gave  it  a  slap  of 
approval. 

"  Here's  the  greatest  bargain  of  the  fair,"  he 
said.  "  If  you  saw  that  coat  in  the  window  of  a 
draper's  shop,  you'd  see  a  ticket  on  it  marked  one 
pound  seven  and  sixpence  :  divil  a  lie  !  The 
drapers,  I  tell  you,  are  worse  robbers  than  the 
landlords.  I  say  the  drapers  are  worse  robbers 
than  what  the  landlords  were.  They're  worse 
extorters.  It's  the  truth.  I'm  offering  this 
handsome  gentleman's  waterproof  coat  for  twenty 
shillings.     Twenty  shillings,  do  you  hear  ?     I'm 


PUCK  FAIR  159 

at  my  old  fault.  I  sell  too  cheap.  Here, 
maybe  you  can't  get  a  right  view  of  it  there.  I'll 
put  it  on  to  show  you." 

Talking  away  the  whole  time,  he  put  the 
waterproof  on,  buttoned  it  up  and  turned  round 
and  round  so  as  to  let  us  have  a  view  of  it  in  every 
aspect. 

"  Is  there  any  of  you  thinking  of  getting 
married  ?  "  he  asked.  "  If  a  young  fellow  was 
thinking  of  getting  married  this  coat  would  mean 
a  thousand  pounds  extra  to  the  fortune." 

Peeling  the  coat  off  him,  he  again  invited  bids 
for  it. 

"  Twenty  shillings  !  "  he  shouted,  slapping  it 
hard  ;  "  twenty  shillings,  and  I'll  take  any  money 
but  matrimony  !  Nineteen  shillings  " — with 
another  slap  —  "eighteen  shillings" — with 
another  —  "  seventeen  and  sixpence  "  —  with 
another.  "  Here,  I  don't  think  you  people 
understand.  This  is  a  coat  made  of  fine  india- 
rubber — a  coat  made  of  the  purest  indiarubber." 

He  stooped  and  thrust  it  at  a  spectator. 

"  Smell  it,  man,  smell  it,"  he  insisted.  "  It 
will  do  you  more  good  than  a  week  at  Bally- 
bunion  " — a  seaside  resort ;  "  it's  more  strength- 
ening, refreshing,  and  invigorating.  Seventeen 
shillings."  He  hit  the  coat  a  hard  slap  again. 
"  If  I  struck  one  of  you  people  as  hard  and  as 
often  as  I'm  striking  this  coat,  you'd  be'  killed 
altogether.     Sixteen   shillings.     It   wouldn't   let 


i6o  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

through  the  rain,  if  it  was  raining  for  a  month. 
Fifteen  shillings  and  sixpence.  If  it  was  a  wet  day- 
to-day,  there'd  be  plenty  of  you  wanting  it.  It's 
not  raining  now.  I  can  remember  the  time  it 
was.  Fifteen  shillings.  Going,  going  at  fifteen 
shillings.  Fifteen  shillings.  Fifteen  shillings. 
Fifteen  shillings.  What's  come  over  you  ?  I 
never  was  in  such  a  crowd  of  people  before  in  my 
life.  You've  neither  manes,  brains,  nor  under- 
standing.    Fourteen  shillings  and  sixpence  ?  " 

Not  an  offer  from  the  crowd.  Just  a  sea  of 
faces  waiting  for  the  next  jest  and  gibe,  everybody 
taking  a  thorough  pleasure  in  the  names  that  the 
red  man  was  calling  them. 

At  length  he  threw  down  the  waterproof  in 
disgust. 

"  I  might  as  well,"  he  protested,  "  be  standing 
in  the  graveyard  selling  clothes  to  the  dead." 

He  turned  from  the  indiarubber  coat  which 
nobody  wanted  and  took  up  a  saddle  instead. 
But  this  scarcely  gave  him  so  good  a  subject  for 
his  eloquence. 

"  This,"  said  he  encouragingly,  holding  up  the 
saddle  to  the  eyes  of  the  crowd,  "  is  what  you  call 
the  farmer's  friend.  If  you  want  to  go  for  the 
priest  or  the  doctor  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
this  is  what  you  turn  to.  The  farmer's  friend — • 
who'll  show  his  decent  rearing  and  his  common 
sense  by  making  a  reasonable  offer  for  it  ?  " 

He  paused. 


PUCK  FAIR  i6i 

"  Come  on,  all  you  dogs  of  war  and  lovers  of 
peace  !  "  he  bullied  us,  hitting  the  saddle  a  thump 
with  his  free  hand.  "  What  offers  for  this  fine 
saddle  ?  " 

Again  he  paused  and  again  everybody  gaped 
and  said  nothing.  He  threw  down  the  saddle  and, 
as  he  looked  round  the  crowd,  he  folded  his  arms 
in  an  attitude  of  melancholy  bitterness. 

"  Silent,  O  Moyle,  is  the  roar  of  thy  waters  !  " 
he  misquoted,  with  a  pitying  look  at  the  crowd. 

His  failure  to  thump  and  shout  the  crowd  into 
a  purchasing  humour,  however,  could  not  depress 
such  virile  spirits  for  ever.  As  we  moved  off, 
feeling  that  the  best  of  the  performance  must  be 
over,  he  was  engaged  in  announcing  the  glories 
of  a  suit  of  boy's  clothes,  and  we  could  hear  him 
suddenly  break  off  to  rebuke  some  one  in  the 
crowd  :  "  It's  no  use  your  winking  at  me,  ma'am. 
I'm  a  married  man." 

That  is  a  jest  that  seldom  fails  in  the  country. 

Up  along  the  middle  of  the  street  just  then  a 
crier  with  a  bell  in  his  hand  was  coming,  and  he 
paused  and  began  to  ring  the  bell  slowly  as  he 
took  up  his  position  at  the  nearest  corner.  Bent- 
kneed,  stiff-backed,  eagle-nosed,  grey,  he  rang  on 
steadily  till  a  small  crowd  had  gathered  round  him, 
after  which  he  paused  and  lifted  up  a  good  middle- 
aged  voice  and  proclaimed  in  the  tones  of  a 
herald :  "  Take  notice,  take  pertickler  notice.  I 
wish  to  inform  ye  that  the  auction  of  a  pony  and 


1 62  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

trap  belonging  to  Mrs. will  take  place  this 

afternoon  at  two  o'clock  outside  the  Bank." 

Having  announced  further  auctions  of  bulls 
and  other  things,  he  seemed  to  raise  his  voice 
slightly. 

"  A1j"o,"  he  continued  in  recitative,  putting 
an  almost  threatening  emphasis  on  the  second 
syllable  of  the  word,  "  that  the  Clerk  of  the 
Workhouse  asks  me  to  inform  ye  that,  if  any  of 
ye  has  not  paid  the  last  quarter's  rates,  as  soon  as 
this  fair  is  over  ye  will  be  prosecuted.  Akc," 
he  added,  without  a  pause,  as  the  people  looked 
at  each  other  and  smiled,  "  that  a  pig  weighing 
a  hundredweight  and  a  half  went  astray  at 
yesterday's  fair,  and  if  any  of  ye  will  bring  me 
tidings  of  the  pig,  I  will  pay  him  a  half-crown 
to-morrow." 

As  he  reached  the  last  words  of  the  sentence, 
his  words  fell  to  the  ordinary  tones  of  conversation, 
like  a  ballad-singer's  when  he  has  reached  the 
last  line  of  a  song.  And,  ringing  his  bell,  he  went 
on  his  way. 

As  the  day  wore  on,  the  noise  and  the  crowds 
increased,  and  all  the  gambling  games  which 
lined  the  gutter  down  the  hill  were  surrounded 
by  crowds  of  eager  faces.  I  noticed  in  particular 
one  audacious  old  scoundrel  with  a  humped  back 
who  was  running  a  penny  draw  with  a  dirty  box 
of  gimcracks  in  front  of  him.  He,  too,  kept 
forbidding  the  female  sex  to  wink  at  him  on  the 


THE    BALLAD-SINGER. 
Drarci!  and  coloured  by  jfack  "B.   Teals. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


PUCK  FAIR  163 

ground  that  he  was  a  married  man.  But  his 
jests  were  of  the  feeblest.  He  had  no  humour 
beyond  the  official  humour  of  his  class.  He  was 
selling  bits  of  cardboard  about  half  the  length 
of  your  finger  at  a  penny  apiece.  You  drew  one 
of  these  at  a  venture  out  of  a  small  box  he  passed 
round,  and  on  it  the  name  of  your  prize  was 
written.  The  old  man  took  the  scrap  of  cardboard 
from  the  purchaser  and  read  out  the  inscription. 
"  A  lady's  gold  ring,"  he  would  announce,  and  with 
great  solemnity  would  hand  a  ring  that  had  once 
been  in  a  lucky-bag  over  to  the  winner.  Or  it 
might  be  a  lady's  brooch,  or  a  photograph  frame, 
or  a  necklace,  all  of  them  mighty  lucky-baggy  and 
mighty  showy  for  a  penny.  Or  he  would  read  out 
impressively,  "  A  pair  of  gentleman's  bootlaces," 
and  would  present  the  prize  to  the  winner,  beaming 
congratulation.  It  was  a  lottery  in  which  there 
were  no  blanks.  The  poorest  prize  I  could  see  was 
a  ballad.  I  would  not  call  a  ballad  a  poor  prize 
in  ordinary  circumstances,  but  this  old  man  did 
not  give  his  victims  ballads  in  the  ordinary  form. 
He  had  simply  cut  the  ballads  out  of  a  cheap 
ballad-budget,  and  his  prizes  were  only  these 
clipped  snippets.  In  any  case,  "  Paddy  Hegarty's 
Ducks  "  is  no  ballad  in  the  country  sense  of  the 
word.  I  never  heard  the  words  of  it  before,  but 
old  Ananias  read  the  first  verse  out  to  us  with 
unction  as  he  distributed  the  prizes. 

Killorglin  is  a  town  of  several  streets,  and  every 


1 64  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

square  inch  of  it  was  filled  with  the  fair.  In 
better  days,  I  believe,  the  fair  used  to  overflow 
out  along  the  country  roads,  but  even  in  our  own 
degenerate  times  there  is  enough  of  it  to  tire  one. 
On  wandering  down  towards  the  bridge  at  the 
bottom  of  the  hill  I  met  the  man  who  had  driven 
us  over  from  Killarney  the  day  before,  and  he  had 
already  had  a  surfeit  of  it  in  the  shape  of  small 
whiskies. 

"  We  didn't  get  to  bed  last  night  at  all,  sir," 
he  told  me,  in  explanation  of  the  antic  movements 
of  the  limbs  and  face  of  his  companion.  "  It's 
only  a  drop  of  dynamite  that  keeps  the  life  in  us." 

Sitting  near  us  on  the  window-sill  of  a  public- 
house,  watching  the  crowds  and  the  red  and  the 
black  cattle  go  by,  was  an  old  grumble-faced 
farmer,  a  heavy-nosed,  whiskered  old  fellow  with 
an  enormous  mouth.  He  passed  some  remark 
about  the  time  of  day,  and  it  was  not  long  after- 
wards that  he  passed  some  remark  on  a  girl  that 
went  by. 

"  This  should  be  a  good  place  to  get  a  woman," 
he  suggested  dully. 

I  looked  at  his  face  to  see  if  I  had  misheard  him  ; 
but  not  a  muscle  of  it  moved  to  tell  me. 

"  You  bawdy  old  wretch,"  thought  I,  not 
giving  him  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  "  how  dare 
you  sit  there  in  this  land  of  innocence  and  think 
such  things  !  " 

"  It's  grand,  man,"  said  the  young  drunk  chap, 


PUCK  FAIR  165 

putting  a  friendly  hand  on  his  shoulder,  "  to  be 
sitting  at  the  door  of  a  pub  all  day,  taking  a  good 
look  at  all  the  fine  girls  that  do  be  coming  into 
the  fair." 

Old  heavy-nose  grunted. 

"  It's  good  to  be  looking  at  them,"  he  agreed ; 
"  but,"  he  added  gloomily,  "  it's  better  to  be 
hugging  them." 

By  this  time  the  sun  had  begun  to  shine,  and, 
better  still,  I  had  been  directed  to  a  shop  where 
I  could  get  a  certain  paper  I  wanted.  When  I 
arrived  at  the  shop — not  far  from  the  bridge — 
the  proprietor,  who  was  standing  in  the  doorway, 
said  that  the  paper  had  not  arrived  yet,  but  he 
was  expecting  it  every  minute.  Meanwhile,  in 
case  I  would  wait  for  it,  he  offered  me  a  stool  that 
he  had  brought  out  and  placed  outside  his  door 
on  the  footpath.  He  was  a  middle-sized  hard 
man  of  rounding  stomach,  with  close  curly  hair 
all  over  his  face ;  he  wore  a  brown  bowler  hat, 
and  a  grey  suit  of  clothes  that  would  take  no  harm 
from  the  flour  in  his  shop.  He  talked  for  some 
time  on  all  sorts  of  topics,  especially  on  his  travels 
to  London  and  one  or  two  occasions  on  which  he 
had  seen  English  monarchs  and  lord-lieutenants. 
I  did  my  best  to  keep  the  conversation  on  humbler 
planes,  but  this  little  gentleman  had  an  extra- 
ordinary interest  in  royal  families,  and  seemed  to 
think  that  I,  being  a  stranger,  maybe  a  tourist, 
must  be  both  an  authority  on  and  an  enthusiast 


i66  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

for  these  things.  When  he  had  told  me  all  he 
himself  knew  of  royalty,  he  asked  me  if  I  had 
seen  Queen  Alexandra's  picture-book.  I  con- 
fessed I  had  not,  and  when  he  said  he  would  go 
in  and  bring  it  out  to  me,  I  couldn't  for  the  life 
of  me  throw  cold  water  on  his  kindly  and  hospitable 
intentions.  I  took  the  book  in  my  hands  and 
began  to  turn  the  pages  over  sadly,  glancing  at 
portraits  of  royalties  dressed  as  soldiers,  sailors, 
and  Highlanders.  At  last,  in  sheer  weariness,  I 
left  the  book  lying  open  on  my  knee,  and,  as  luck 
would  have  it.  King  Edward  in  a  yachting-cap 
smiled  out  from  the  page. 

"  Grand  man  that  !  "  said  my  host,  tapping  a 
freckled  finger  on  the  royal  portrait. 

"  Do  you  not  think,"  said  I,  resolved  to  turn 
the  conversation  at  all  costs,  "  that  Parnell  was  a 
better  man  ?  " 

I  would  hardly  have  said  it,  if  I  had  guessed  it 
would  have  ruffled  him  so. 

"  Parnell  ?  "  he  barked,  in  an  incredulous  voice. 
"  O  God,  no.  Oh,  my  God,  no,"  he  said,  as 
though  the  very  suggestion  choked  him  with 
disgust.  "  I  can  tell  you,"  he  declared,  his  eyes 
dancing,  as  he  snapped  Queen  Alexandra's  photo- 
graph-album out  of  my  hands,  "  there's  damned 
little  nationality  in  my  bones.  Maybe  there 
would  be,"  he  glared,  retreating  into  the  door  of 
his  shop,  "  if  it  paid  me." 

When  he  came  out  again  after  putting  away 


PUCK  FAIR  167 

the  album  I  led  the  conversation  timidly  to  the 
question  whether  nationality  does  not  after  all  pay, 
and  asked  him  to  name  me  any  country  in  which  a 
successful  movement  for  political  independence 
or  the  revival  of  a  national  language  had  not 
resulted  in  industrial  and  agricultural  progress. 
He  was  quite  reasonable,  and  admitted  that  what 
was  good  for  Bohemia  and  Hungary  and  England 
and  Greece  might  be  good  for  Ireland.  But  I 
saw  that  any  reference  to  the  respective  merits 
of  King  Edward  and  Parnell  would  be  wind  to  a 
flame  again,  and  I  avoided  making  the  national 
question  a  personal  matter.  By  the  time  The 
Irish  Times  arrived  we  were  excellent  friends, 
and,  before  I  left,  he  emphasised  the  fact  again 
and  again  that  he  might  believe  in  nationality 
if  it  paid  him.  .   .   . 

I  was  getting  a  little  weary  of  the  fair  and  its 
thousand  incidents — as  weary  as  the  old  puck 
who  stood,  with  bound  horns,  on  his  mast-high 
stage  and  looked  down  at  us  through  a  wall  of 
green  leaves.  So  I  escaped  from  the  town  along 
a  country  road,  up  which  broken  companies  of 
small  cattle  and  their  drivers  moved  continuously, 
and  men  rode  home  adventurously  on  their  horses 
towards  the  mists  that  still  hung  in  dull  veils  over 
the  faces  of  the  Kerry  hills. 


CHAPTER  VI 

TOURISTS  IN  KERRY 

Travelling  in  the  train  from  Killorglin  to 
Cahirciveen  in  the  late  afternoon,  one  was  still 
in  the  atmosphere  of  Puck  Fair  for  many  miles 
of  the  way.  Caravans  of  horsemen  and  cattle 
and  carts  and  cars  poured  out  along  the  road  that 
runs  beside  the  railway,  and  in  their  disordered 
hurry  homeward  had  an  air  of  flight — of  a  miniature 
retreat  from  Moscow.  The  train,  too,  was  full 
of  the  holiday.  Boys  were  stamping  their  feet, 
thumping  the  sides  of  the  compartments,  and 
singing  boisterously  ;  girls  were  laughing  in  the 
next  carriage  as  they  only  laugh  on  days  of  crowds 
and  excitements ;  half-bodies  were  stretching 
out  of  windows  and  hailing  other  half-bodies 
farther  along  the  train. 

There  was  a  very  charming  girl  in  the  carriage 
with  us,  wearing  a  flowered  hat  that  looked  strange 
to  this  part  of  the  world.  She  was  sitting  between 
two  younger  sisters  who  had  shawls  over  their 
heads,  and  who  looked  at  everything,  including 
her,  with  smiles  of  wonder.     She  was  just  back 


TOURISTS  IN  KERRY  169 

from  America,  she  said,  where  she  was  in  service  ; 
and  she  was  going  to  go  out  there  again.  She 
could  not  settle  down  at  home  after  having  been 
in  America.  There  was  nothing  to  do  on  the 
farm.  She  would  die  of  dullness.  It  was  nice 
enough  in  the  summer,  but  nobody  who  had  ever 
had  to  stay  on  a  farm  through  the  winter  would 
be  content  to  settle  down  in  the  country.  The 
two  dark  sisters  with  the  brown  eyes  listened  to 
her  in  shy  admiration,  smiling  under  their  shawls 
as  though  they  too  had  seen  the  vision  of  America. 
It  is  an  odd  fact  that  in  many  parts  of  rural 
Ireland  America  seems  far  more  real  and  far 
nearer  to  the  people  than  any  Irish  city.  Men 
and  women  who  know  as  little  of  Dublin  almost 
as  they  do  of  Berlin  talk  to  you  of  New  York  as 
though  it  were  just  round  the  corner,  a  paradise 
of  crowds  and  lights.  Obviously,  the  fault  of 
this  lies  to  a  great  degree  with  the  schools,  which 
have  always  taught  geography  and  history  on  the 
principle  that  Ireland  is,  in  the  vulgar  phrase, 
the  last  country  God  made.  You  may  be  brought 
up  in  a  garden,  but  if  your  are  taught  to  look  at 
all  the  flowers  in  it  as  weeds,  to  be  bored  even 
by  their  names,  and  to  dream  of  other  distant 
gardens  as  the  only  places  where  really  wonder- 
ful flowers  grow,  you  will  feel  homesick  for  the 
intenser  beauty,  and  you  will  continue  blind  to 
the  loveliness  around  you.  Luckily,  politics  and 
sport  have  served  to  keep  some  local  enthusiasms 


I/O  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

burning  here.  The  railway  carriages  testify- 
to  this  with  their  bescribbled  walls.  "  Up 
Kerry,"  "Up  Murphy,"  "Down  So-and-so, 
he's  a  grabber,"  are  mottoes  very  plentifully 
pencilled  over  the  railway  trains  of  Kerry.  .  .  . 

Cahirciveen  was  at  the  end  of  that  glorious 
railway  journey,  which  took  us  now  among  the 
mountains  and  now  high  above  the  shore,  with 
riders  trooping  along  the  road  low  down  between 
us  and  the  sea.  Like  the  days  that  went  before 
it,  it  was  a  poor  day  for  seeing  the  hills,  but 
Dingle  Bay  shone  below  us  with  a  million  re- 
freshing waves,  and  the  horsemen  riding  along 
the  shore  made  the  scene  as  exciting  as  a  ballad. 

We  had  no  intention  of  staying  in  Cahirciveen. 
It  was  simply  to  be  a  place  where  we  changed  on 
to  a  mail-car  for  Waterville.  The  mail-car  for 
Waterville,  however,  though  it  was  in  the  railway 
guide,  was  not  in  Cahirciveen  when  we  got  there. 
Nor  would  it  leave  Cahirciveen  till  the  next 
morning.  Further,  the  porter  at  Killorglin  had 
put  our  luggage  into  the  wrong  train.  That  is 
how  we  came  to  spend  the  night  in  Cahirciveen, 
a  little  town,  shaped  like  a  catapult,  which  lies 
along  the  side  of  a  hill  where  the  stones  gleam 
like  jewels  in  the  sun. 

I  do  not  curse  the  author  of  the  railway  guide, 
and  I  do  not  curse  the  porter.  On  the  contrary, 
I  am  grateful  to  them,  for  Cahirciveen  is  a  real 
place,  not  a  tourist  resort,  and  that  hotel  a  little 


TOURISTS  IN  KERRY  171 

above  the  railway  station  is  a  house  of  comfort, 
cleanHness,  and  honest  tariffs. 

On  the  next  morning  the  sun  rose  with  a  lion's 
strength.  Every  rock  in  the  hillside  was  shining, 
and  brown  floods  were  pouring  down  the  river 
into  the  blue  sea-water  that  comes  up  Valencia 
Harbour  towards  the  town,  and  in  the  fierce 
light  the  tide  swirled  copper-coloured,  while 
blue-jerseyed  fishermen  dragged  their  brown  nets 
through  it  up  among  the  boats  on  the  shore 
below  the  bridge. 

Cahirciveen  is  not  only  beautiful  in  its  situation 
but  interesting  in  its  memories,  for  it  was  a  little 
to  the  west  of  the  town  that  Daniel  O'Connell 
was  born.  The  ivy  is  now  growing  through  the 
windows  of  the  ruined  house,  which  lies  behind 
a  locked  gate  in  a  field  where  cattle  browse.  It 
was  on  the  way  to  the  house  that  we  met  an  old 
slim-headed  farmer  mending  the  road  and  trust- 
ing to  William  O'Brien  to  regenerate  Ireland. 
He  was  especially  eager  that  Mr.  O'Brien  should 
rescue  him  from  the  clutches  of  his  landlord,  who 
had  refused  to  let  him  sell  the  turf  off  his  farm. 

"  If  it  was  myself  owned  the  farm,"  said  he, 
leaning  on  his  long  spade,  "  and  had  the  right  to 
sell  the  turf  off  it,  do  you  think  it's  here  I  would 
be,  mending  this  damned  road  ?  " 

I  asked  him  wasn't  his  landlord — a  famous 
English  gentleman — an  absentee. 

"  I    don't    know    what    he    is,"    he    asserted 


172  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

vehemently.  "  I  know  he's  a  tyrant.  That's  what 
he  is." 

I  comforted  him  by  assuring  him  that  the  day 
of  the  landlords  was  nearly  over. 

"  Ah  !  "  said  he,  spitting  on  his  hands,  and 
ladling  stones  into  a  hollow  of  the  road,  "  I'm 
in  dread  they'll  be  brought  to  their  knees  yet. 
There  was  O'Connell  now,  he  was  a  great  man, 
and  there  was  Parnell,  he  was  a  great  man,  and 
there's  William  O'Brien,  and  I'm  thinking  if  it 
wasn't  that  they  had  treated  O'Brien  badly,  they 
would  have  got  rid  of  them  fellows  long  ago. 
Conciliation — that's  what  they  call  it.  That's 
what  O'Brien  wants,  and  treating  Catholic  and 
Protestant  fair  and  fair  alike.  Isn't  a  Protestant 
just  as  much  an  Irishman  as  a  Catholic  ?  That's 
what  O'Brien  says,  and  he's  right.  In  the  name 
of  God,  what's  to  divide  them,  once  the  land 
belongs  to  the  people  ?  " 

O'Connell  is  commemorated  in  Cahirciveen, 
not  only  by  his  ruined  birthplace,  but  by  an 
ambitious  new  memorial  chapel,  the  foundation- 
stone  of  which  was  sent  by  the  Pope.  Other  and 
older  ruins — a  castle  of  the  McCarthies  and  a 
circular  stone  fort — lie  beyond  the  river. 

There  used  to  be  a  motor  char-a-banc  which 
took  you  from  Cahirciveen  round  the  coast  of 
Kerry,  but  this  so  bruised  and  smashed  the  soft 
roads  that — as  far  as  Waterville,  at  any  rate — it 
had  to  be  supplanted  by  the  old  horse-vehicle 


TOURISTS  IN  KERRY  173 

again.  When  this  drew  up  at  the  door  of  our 
hotel,  a  little  foreign  lady  was  uttering  a  shrill 
monologue  to  the  driver,  who  smiled  sheepishly. 
The  driver,  it  seemed,  had  brought  her  in  from 
Waterville  that  morning  for  the  train  to  Dublin, 
had  put  her  with  her  bags  into  a  carriage  which 
did  not  belong  to  the  train  at  all,  and  the  train 
had  steamed  out  shortly  afterwards  without  her. 
She  was  able  to  get  no  satisfaction  out  of  the 
stationmaster  or  the  porter,  and  the  driver  evi- 
dently thought  that  if  he  smiled  long  enough, 
he,  too,  would  prove  himself  guiltless.  The  little 
shrill  lady  was  doing  her  best  to  peck  him  into 
realising  the  enormity  of  his  offence.  She  at  last 
broke  off  in  exhaustion. 

"  Driver,  bring  me  a  brandy,"  she  commanded 
sharply,  and  when  she  had  swallowed  this  she 
began  to  pour  out  her  grievances  against  the 
driver  with  renewed  volubility.  She  said  she 
would  make  him  take  her  back  to  Waterville 
for  nothing,  anyway. 

Farther  on,  we  picked  up  two  other  ladies. 
They  sat  directly  behind  us,  and  talked  at  the 
top  of  their  voices.  Both  of  them  were  going  to 
Waterville.  They  had  evidently  never  met  before, 
but  they  were  soon  talking  like  old  friends,  for 
they  both  had  the  same  interest  in  the  English 
Royal  Family  and  the  aristocracy.  One  of  them 
praised  a  certain  royal  lady. 

"  Ah  yes,"  admitted   the    elder    of   the   two ; 


174  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

"  good,  but  such  a  bore  !  So  different  from 
Queen  Victoria  !  Queen  Victoria  was  such  a 
dear,  lively  old  thing — so  fond  of  company.  She 
simply  couldn't  bear  any  one  who  was  dull  to  be 
in  the  same  room  with  her.  Queen  Mary  ?  Ah 
yes,  charming,  charming.     And   so  good  to  the 

poor.     And  so  clever.     Lord  told  me  that 

he  considers  her  one  of  the  cleverest  queens  we 
have  ever  had." 

The  younger  lady,  in  a  shy  voice,  corroborated 
this  on  almost  as  aristocratic  authority. 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  the  other — she  spoke  com- 
mandingly  from  the  pit  of  her  throat,  as 
dowagers  are  made  to  do  on   the  stage — "  You 

know ,  do  you  ?     Then  you  probably 

know  Lady ?  " 

The  younger  lady  did  not,  but  she  had  friends 
who  knew  Lady  — ■ —  very  well,  indeed. 

"  Delightful  woman,"  declared  the  dowager. 
"  Oh,  you  must  meet  her  some  day.  Do  you 
know,  the  Duke  of  Connaught  said  that  she  was 
the  wittiest  woman  in  Ireland.  That  was  when  he 
was  Commander  of  the  Forces.     She  was  invited 

to  Dublin  Castle  with  Lord  to  meet  him, 

and,  as  luck  would  have  it,  she  got  a  raging 
toothache  that  day,  and  one  side  of  her  face  was 
quite  swollen.  So,  when  she  was  taken  up  to  be 
presented  to  the  Duke,  she  said  to  him,  '  You 
must  only  look  at  this  side,  your  Royal  Highness. 
The  other  cheek's  at  home  in  bed.'     The  Duke 


TOURISTS  IN  KERRY  175 

was  greatly  charmed  with  her ;  she's  so  full  of 
fun.  He  said  afterwards  that  she  was  the  wittiest 
woman  in  Ireland." 

From  that  the  talk  drifted  to  Waterville,  its 
hotels,  beauties,  and  inhabitants. 

"  The  most  charming  peasantry  in  the  world," 
was  the  elderly  lady's  verdict  on  the  last  of  these  ; 
"  so  good-mannered,  and  witty,  and  obliging." 

The  other  lady  said  she  knew  some  people  who 
were  very  fond  of  the  northern  Irish.  Her  com- 
panion hummed  and  hawed  at  that  ;  the  north, 
she  said,  had  no  manners  and  had  not  the  southern 
brightness  and  humour. 

"  I  have  heard  it  said,"  the  other  suggested 
timidly,  "  that  they're  very  thrifty." 

"  Ah  !  "  the  dowager  admitted,  with  a  fine 
touch  of  scorn  in  her  voice,  "  thrifty,  if  you  like ; 
but  thrift's  not  everything." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  I  suddenly  came  to 
a  firm  resolution  :  quite  loud  into  myself,  "  I'm 
blessed  if  I'll  stop  at  Waterville  at  all." 

No,  Waterville  lies  beside  a  wild  bay  and  has 
a  lovely  lake  behind  it.  But  those  ladies  had 
conjured  up  a  week-end  atmosphere  about  the 
place  by  the  time  we  reached  it,  and  the  ugly, 
clean,  reddish-brown  model  houses  inhabited  by 
the  servants  of  the  Cable  Company  that  has  a 
station  there  were  like  a  cry  to  us  to  go  on  farther 
to  Parknasilla,  which,  at  least,  has  a  beautiful 
name. 


176  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

At  Waterville  we  gave  up  horses  and  took  to  a 
covered  mot  or- vehicle  driven  by  a  little  sulky- 
chauffeur  from  London.  To  hear  him  talk — 
and  I  will  say  this  for  him,  that  any  of  the  passen- 
gers who  asked  him  questions  found  it  difficult 
to  get  more  than  a  grunt  out  of  him — was  to 
exchange  the  magic  of  Kerry  for  the  magic  of 
Holborn.  While  this  little  screw-faced  man  was 
running  about  in  his  brown  mechanic's  suit  and 
with  a  cigarette  sticking  to  his  lips,  even  the  most 
determined  sentimentalist  must  have  found  it 
difficult  to  persuade  himself  that  he  was  in  a  land 
of  colleens,  shillelaghs,  and  wakes.  One  Irish — 
or  alleged  Irish — characteristic  the  chauffeur  had. 
He  was  a  magnificently  reckless  driver.  But, 
after  all,  he  may  have  learned  that  when  driving 
motor-buses  in  London.  He  certainly  took  the 
sharp,  sudden  corners  of  the  Kerry  rocks  in  a 
spirit  of  blind  faith  that  made  me  expect  every 
minute  to  be  plunging  into  the  ruins  of  an  ass-cart 
or  to  be  hurled  over  the  side  of  the  road — which 
in  places  hangs  on  a  kind  of  cliff-edge,  with  only  a 
little  futile  wall  dividing  it  from  the  abyss.  It 
runs  in  a  multitude  of  curves,  its  future  ever 
unseen  behind  a  threatening  jut  of  stone.  Round 
these  we  swept  with  something  of  the  gay  care- 
lessness of  a  switchback  railway.  The  chauffeur 
clearly  acted  on  the  assumption  that  Kerry  was  a 
privileged  motor-run  with  no  native  population — 
none  at  least  that  was  likely  to  be  travelling  the 


TOURISTS  IN  KERRY  177 

coast-road.  Perhaps  he  was  right.  Kerry — this 
bit  of  it,  at  any  rate — has  an  air  of  wilderness 
beyond  any  other  part  of  Ireland  I  know.  It 
looked  all  ragged  and  deserted  in  the  dull  misty 
light  that  afternoon,  its  boasted  mountains  like 
shapeless  piled-up  heaps  of  green  and  stones.  No 
wonder  the  tourist  who  judges  Ireland  by  the 
wildest  parts  of  Kerry,  and  only  knows  these  as 
they  can  be  seen  from  a  rushing  motor-car,  gets 
an  exaggerated  idea  of  Irish  desolation  and 
poverty. 

Here  he  sees  an  untidy  little  farm  hanging 
among  the  rocks  of  the  hillside,  and  here  an  excited 
ragged  man  trying  to  keep  a  terrified  ass  from 
backing  into  eternity  at  sight  of  the  motor  ;  and 
here  a  long  barefooted  boy,  a  youth  of  sixteen 
or  so  with  wild  hair,  coming  up  with  a  parcel  to 
be  posted,  tugs  his  forelock  and  calls  the 
chauffeur  "  sir  "  (How  sick  that  made  me  feel !). 
Ireland  lies  about  us,  no  doubt,  but  this  is  not 
Ireland  that  we  see  from  the  tourist  motor.  Why, 
the  motor  is  even  roofed  in  such  a  way  that  we 
cannot  get  a  fuU  view  of  the  hills !  We  are  cooped 
in  and  protected  from  the  rain  and  reality. 

A  lady  with  two  or  three  children  and  a  load  of 
wooden  spades,  who  sat  beside  us,  did  nevertheless 
induce  a  number  of  Irish  thrills  in  herself  as  we 
rumbled  along.  We  were  passing  a  small  house 
where  a  number  of  people  were  sitting  on  the  wall 
outside   and    moving    about    the    door.     It   was 


178  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

obviousl)^  a  funeral  party  or  some  such  thing.  But 
the  lady  romantically  jumped  in  her  seat  and 
cried  to  her  husband,  "  Look  !  It's  an  Irish 
eviction.     I'm  sure  it's  an  Irish  eviction." 

Her  husband  said  "  Humph  !  "  and  went  on 
smoking  his  cigar  with  the  look  of  a  man  who 
would  say,  "  Those  damned  Irish,  they  are  always 
being  evicted." 

I  could  imagine  those  two  laying  down  the  law 
about  Ireland  after  their  return  home. 

"  My  dear,  have  you  ever  been  in  Ireland  ?  We 
have.  If  you  knew  the  people,  you  would  not 
talk  like  that.  The  last  time  we  were  there  we 
saw  an  eviction,  and  I  can  assure  you  it  made  me 
realise  the  Irish  question  as  I  had  never  done 
before.  Poor  creatures — I  felt  sorry  for  them. 
But  to  put  the  loyal  and  prosperous  north  under 
the  heel  of  such  people  !  Squalid,  superstitious, 
and  half-starved  !  My  dear,  if  you  had  ever  spent 
any  time  among  the  southern  Irish,  you  would  not 
talk  of  such  a  thing." 

Past  Derrynane,  O'Connell's  old  home,  a 
wooded  estate  running  into  the  sea,  we  flew,  and 
through  the  town  of  Sneem,  which  had  a  mildewed 
look  in  the  clammy  misty  light.  And  after  that 
it  was  not  long  till  we  were  rolling  up  the  drive 
through  the  paradisiacal  grounds  in  which  the 
hotel  of  Parknasilla  stands. 

Parknasilla  is,  I  am  sure,  an  ideal  hotel  for  the 
rich  tourist.     Originally  the  palace  of  a  bishop, 


i 


TOURISTS  IN  KERRY  179 

it  lies  in  a  beautifully  wooded  estate,  and  plants 
grow  about  it  in  a  tropical  luxuriance.  Close 
to  the  sea,  it  has  its  own  boatmen  and  fishermen, 
and  its  shore  of  rocks  with  little  inlets  of  the  sea 
running  up  among  them — rocks  rich  in  wrack 
and  seaweed,  and  with  bridges  leading  from  the 
woods  to  them — the  woods  and  the  sea  both  so 
fragrant.  Here  is  a  retreat  from  business  and 
poverty — ^like  a  hothouse  set  in  a  congested 
district.  Even  though  the  evening  was  wet,  it 
was  pleasant  to  wander  among  the  tangle  of  the 
trees,  as  in  a  forest  of  silver  birches  with  rich  under- 
growth, and  to  watch  the  sea,  slow  and  quiet, 
filling  the  little  bays  among  the  rocks,  and  the 
wrack  moving  in  the  inward  and  outward  wash. 

This  was  all  good.  But  I  confess  the  hotel 
itself  overwhelmed  me.  It  was  a  place  of  huge 
respectable  silence,  a  haunt  of  the  boredom  of 
the  rich.  Ladies  in  evening  dress  sat  reading 
novels  in  the  large  drawing-room  in  chilling 
groups.  Here  one  had  all  the  exclusiveness  which 
is  supposed  to  be  the  special  mark  of  English  life. 
As  I  looked  round  that  company  of  the  well- 
dressed,  sitting  on  their  chairs  and  sofas,  all  silent 
and  all  damned,  I'd  have  given  my  second-best 
pair  of  boots  to  be  back  in  Lisdoonvarna,  with  its 
boisterous  and  hospitable  welcome.  Doubtless 
these  were  human  beings  in  the  hotel  at  Park- 
nasilla,  but  they  were  pretending  not  to  be. 
No  doubt  they  were  enjoying  themselves,  though 


i8o  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

they  evidently  thought  it  good  manners  to 
conceal  the  fact.  They  seemed  to  carry  little 
prisons  of  starch  about  with  them — to  be  resolved 
to  keep  as  aloof  as  the  kings  and  queens  of  some 
savage  tribe.  It  was  not  that  they  suffered  from 
the  shyness  of  strangers  ;  they  had  simply  the 
standofhshness  of  people  who  did  not  care  for 
the  human  race  outside  their  own  little  social 
group.  They  were  the  most  extraordinary  spec- 
tacle I  had  yet  seen  on  the  west  coast  of  Ireland. 
Decent' people,  kind  people,  good  people,  I'm 
quite  sure.  Heaven  bless  them,  but  you  might  as 
well  have  tried  to  feel  brotherly  to  a  lot  of 
walruses. 

The  next  day  we  fled  from  the  place.  We 
felt  that  we  must  get  back  to  Ireland,  and  we 
eagerly  climbed  the  motor  that  gets  you  to  Ken- 
mare  in  time  for  lunch,  to  Glengariff  in  time  for 
tea,  and  to  Bantry  in  time  for  the  Cork  train. 
And  what  a  journey  that  is,  even  when  taken  in 
a  rush  on  a  day  of  wet  wind  and  flying  mists ! 
That  climb  up  the  steep  and  winding  mountain- 
roads  between  Kenmare  and  Glengariff,  with  the 
mists  now  cutting  us  off  from  the  underworld  as 
though  we  were  up  in  a  dirigible  above  the  clouds, 
and  now  disclosing  distant  valleys  of  poverty  far 
down  below  us  and  eager  peaks  rising  above  and 
around  us  like  shapes  in  some  monstrous  war, 
leaves  a  mighty  exciting  memory  behind  it.  It 
is  as  though  one  had  found  a  motor-road  up  the 


TOURISTS  IN  KERRY  i8i 

Brocken  in  a  dream.  And  though,  when  one  has 
passed  through  the  rock-tunnel  at  the  top,  a 
woman  comes  out  of  a  lemonade  shanty  by  the 
roadside  with  a  tray  of  picture  post-cards  for  sale, 
one  remains  immune  from  disenchantment. 

And  Glengariff,  too,  with  its  islets  lying  golden 
in  the  sun  that  comes  after  rain,  dwells  by  a  fairy 
sea.  Glories  of  pines,  glories  of  bay,  glories  of 
hills  are  here  in  so  rich  a  loveliness  that  the  tourist 
is  lost  among  them.  .  .  .  And  by  the  time  one 
has  reached  Bantry  one  is  in  Ireland  again — Ireland 
of  the  cows  and  the  whin  ditches,  and  the  fields 
of  daisy  and  buttercup  and  benweed,  and  the 
human  beings. 


CHAPTER  VII 

KINSALE 

"  The  Town  of  Kinsale  is  a  large,  stinking,  filthy 
hole,"  wrote  the  Reverend  Richard  Allyn,  chap- 
lain of  H.M.S.  Centurion,  in  his  journal  in 
1 69 1.  "I  was  glad  to  leave  so  vile  a  place,  though 
indeed  I  was  somewhat  sorry  to  part  with  Parson 
Tomms  and  the  two  only  fit  men  for  Christian 
conversation  beside  himself  in  the  whole  town- — 
viz.  Mr.  Stowell,  the  mayor,  and  Parson  Mead." 
Kinsale  is  no  longer  large  or  stinking  or  filthy,  if 
it  was  ever  any  of  these,  and  as  I  went  there  in 
search  not  of  Christian  conversation,  but  of 
quietness  and  the  site  of  a  battle,  I  cannot  say 
whether  Parson  Tomms  and  Parson  Mead  and 
the  mayor  have  left  any  worthy  successors.  I 
deny  upon  oath,  however,  that  it  is  or  ever  was 
a  vile  place. 

Kinsale  is  one  of  those  quaint  and  still  southern 
towns  which  look  almost  as  though  they  had 
been  forgotten  at  the  bottom  of  a  motionless  sea 
of  air.  Its  narrow  streets  wind  without  the 
rumble  of  imany  carts  round  a  crook  of  water, 


KINS  ALE  183 

and  behind  them  rises,  as  it  were,  a  cliff  of  ruinous 
dwellings  and  ruinous  walls — a  high  terrace  of  the 
poor  dropping  gradually  towards  the  mouth  of 
the  Bandon  River.  It  is  a  town  of  steep  places 
going  up  from  a  central  labyrinth,  and,  though  it 
has  the  most  modern  of  post  offices  and  some  fine 
enough  new  houses,  these  things  do  not  make  the 
local  atmosphere.  One  remembers  Kinsale  chiefly 
for  the  bygone  fashion  of  its  houses — the  old- 
fangled round  projections  of  their  upper  storeys 
and  their  wavy  fronts  of  dark  tiles.  One  re- 
members it,  too,  because  of  the  women  who  move 
so  quietly  about  its  streets,  bending  forward 
against  the  wind  in  their  dark  hoods  and  cloaks. 
Personally,  I  do  not  like  the  southern  Irish  cloak. 
I  prefer  infinitely  the  grey  patterned  shawls  of 
the  west.  The  cloak,  however,  for  all  its  stains 
and  dustiness,  has  a  curious  impressiveness  as  of 
an  heirloom.  It  is  like  an  inheritance  of  grandeur 
fallen  upon  evil  days.  It  gives  poverty  a  past,  and 
suggests  that  out  in  the  future  the  pride  of  life 
will  one  day  be  brought  back  again  to  the  quayside 
of  Kinsale  on  foreign  ships.  Meanwhile,  on  the 
backs  of  the  poor,  it  is  a  misfit,  an  incongruity. 
Grey-haired  women,  with  an  irregular  patch  of 
face  showing  through  its  ample  gathered  hood, 
have  the  appearance  at  times  of  professional 
mourners  as  they  pass  you  on  the  road. 

We  did  not  stay  in  Kinsale  itself,  but  went  out 
to  one  of  the  numerous  coves  which  lie  along  the 


1 84  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

side  of  the  long  serpentine  water  known  as  Kinsale 
Harbour.  Here  a  steep  little  road  of  neat  houses 
falls  to  a  landing-place  for  boats,  and  at  the  far 
side  of  this  another  steep  road  rises  towards  the 
flagstaff  of  a  coastguard  station,  a  handful  of 
threatening  cannon,  and  an  old  grey  fort  that 
is  inhabited  by  modern  soldiers.  This,  to  my 
inexpert  eye,  appeared  as  though  its  loop-holes 
and  bastions  might  be  a  place  to  defend  in  time 
of  war.  It  looks  back,  on  the  one  hand,  two  or 
three  miles  over  a  round  peninsula  to  Kinsale,  and, 
on  the  other,  gazes  along  several  miles  of  Kinsale 
Harbour  towards  the  ocean  beyond  and  passing 
ships.  Of  military  values,  however,  I  know 
nothing.  This  stumpy  grey  fort,  which  is  so 
ugly  that  it  could  only  justify  its  existence  by 
being  indispensable,  is  by  all  accounts  fit  only 
to  be  the  barrack  that  it  is. 

It  was  built  by  the  Earl  of  Orrery  in  the  time 
of  Charles  ii.  of  England  for  the  protection  of 
Kinsale,  and  by  him  was  called  Charles  Fort — 
a  name  it  earned,  for  it  stood  out  loyally  for  the 
Stuarts  in  1690  against  William  of  Orange's 
Danes  and  Englishmen.  The  siege  began  on  the 
3rd  and  4th  of  October,  when  Sir  Edward  Scot, 
the  Governor,  on  being  called  on  to  surrender, 
declared,  that  "  it  would  be  time  enough  a  month 
hence  to  talk  about  surrendering."  The  Governor 
of  Kinsale  town  had  already  threatened  to  hang  a 
trumpeter  who  had  made  a  similar  demand  on 


KINSALE  185 

him,  and,  firing  the  town,  had  retreated  to 
Old  Fort  on  the  round  peninsula  I  have  men- 
tioned, where  he  had  been  forced  to  surrender 
after  the  slaughter  of  two  hundred  of  the 
garrison. 

Charles  Fort,  we  are  told,  contained  at  the  time 
a  garrison  of  a  thousand  men,  and  provisions  to 
support  them  for  a  year — including  "one  thousand 
barrels  of  wheat,  one  thousand  of  beef,  forty 
tons  of  claret,  and  great  quantities  of  sack,  brandy, 
and  strong  beer."  Unluckily,  the  walls  did  not 
last  as  well  as  the  provisions,  and  the  guns  and 
bombs  of  the  besiegers  were  so  effective  that  by 
the  fifteenth  of  the  month  hostages  were  ex- 
changed and  the  garrison  consented  to  surrender 
on  condition  that  it  "  should  continue  in  the  Fort 
the  1 6th  and  march  out  the  17th  with  bag  and 
baggage,  drums  beating,  colours  flying,  lighted 
matches  and  bullet  in  mouth,  and  to  have  a 
safe  convoy  near  Limrike."  It  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  it  was  the  soldier  who  was  after- 
wards the  great  Marlborough  into  whose  hands 
the  keys  of  the  fort  were  delivered. 

It  was  on  the  sheltered  side  of  Charles  Fort 
that  we  looked  for  rooms,  and  we  could  have  got 
these  at  the  first  house  at  which  we  called,  only 
that  the  woman  of  the  house  was  unable  to 
guarantee  us  Christian  food.  She  asked  hesitat- 
ingly what  we  would  want  to  eat.  We  gave  her 
a  list  of  simplicities  that  might  have  done  for  a 


1 86  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

hermitage.  We  mentioned  eggs,  for  instance,  as 
an  easy  country  food. 

"  We  couldn't  give  you  any  eggs,"  she  said, 
shaking  her  head  gravely. 

We  said  that  fish  would  do. 

She  shook  her  head  again. 

"  I  doubt  if  we  could  get  you  any  fish,"  she  said. 

We  thought  this  very  extraordinary,  and  asked 
her  what  she  herself  proposed  to  give  us. 

She  did  not  answer  directly.  "  Would  you 
have  any  objection  to  condensed  milk  ?  "  she 
asked.  "  I'm  afraid  there  may  be  some  trouble 
getting  milk  for  you." 

In  amazement,  we  asked  for  an  explanation  of 
this  mysterious  famine  of  eggs  and  milk  in  the 
heart  of  a  country  district. 

"  We're  boycotted,"  she  said,  with  a  worn  look, 
and  recommended  us  to  try  some  more  comfort- 
able house,  promising  to  take  us  in  if  we  could  get 
rooms  nowhere  else. 

The  circumstances  of  this  boycott,  as  we  heard 
the  story  afterwards,  were  peculiar.  The  trouble 
was  connected  with  a  farm  from  which  a  tenant 
had  been  evicted  nearly  thirty  years  before,  and 
which  had  afterwards  been  taken  by  an  immigrant 
from  England  or  Scotland.  Now  that  the  land 
war  was  over,  the  evicted  tenant  had  returned 
from  America  with  money  in  his  pocket,  and 
demanded  to  be  allowed  to  buy  back  his  farm. 
Naturally  enough,  the  new  occupants  would  not 


KINSALE  187 

budge  :  the^  too  had,  hy  this  time,  their  asso- 
ciations with  the  farm.  It  was  the  opinion  of 
the  neighbourhood,  however,  that  the  "  wounded 
soldier  of  the  land  war  " — to  use  the  phrase  of  the 
orators — ^had  the  first  claim  on  the  fields,  and 
all  the  common  services  of  life  were  quietly- 
withdrawn  from  the  later  comers — people  who, 
though  everybody  recognised  their  honesty  and 
decency  and  the  difficulty  of  their  case,  stood  in 
some  measure  as  symbols  of  a  dead  system  which 
had  robbed  half  the  fields  of  Ireland  of  their 
rightful  owners. 

It  was  the  kindness  of  the  boycotted  woman 
which  sent  us  back  up  the  hill  to  a  house  on  the 
edge  of  the  street  where  a  landlady  beyond  praise 
mistook  us  for  army  people  and  allowed  us  in. 
I  was  not  in  sight  myself  at  the  time  she  consented 
to  admit  us  :  even  the  most  generous  imagination 
would  have  some  difficulty  in  finding  anything 
soldierly  about  either  my  dress  or  my  figure. 
Our  landlady  afterwards  told  us  frankly,  however, 
that  it  was  well  she  thought  we  either  must 
belong  to  the  army  or  had  come  off  a  yacht  lying 
out  in  the  harbour,  for  otherwise  she  might 
never  have  taken  us  in. 

"  I  don't  take  everybody  as  lodgers,"  she  said, 
wagging  her  netted  head.  "  Oh,  Lord  bless  you, 
child,  no." 

She  was  a  woman  of  good  size,  with  head  bent 
forward  between  her  round  shoulders,  and  arms 


1 88  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

swinging  little  short  swings  in  front  of  her  as  she 
walked.  Her  face  had  character,  worldly  wisdom, 
and  kindliness ;  she  had  a  good  Roman  nose,  and 
mobile  lips  that  were  constantly  twinkling  into 
smiles  along  with  her  ageing  eyes.  She  had  two 
enthusiasms — one  for  British  officers  and  one  for 
the  north  of  Ireland — though  in  politics  she  was, 
I  believe,  a  Nationalist,  and  in  religion  a  Catholic. 
She  was  essentially  one  of  those  women  who  are 
interested  in  the  motherliest  way  in  whatever 
environment  they  are  placed  in,  and  the  best  part 
of  her  life  had  been  spent  as  a  stranger  among  the 
people  of  the  north,  while,  since  she  had  returned 
to  Kinsale,  she  had  been  letting  the  best  rooms  in 
her  house  to  a  succession  of  officers  in  the  Kinsale 
garrison. 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  sad  I  felt  at  first 
when  Mrs.  Dermott  brought  in  the  plates  at 
meal-times,  and  held  the  floor  through  the  entire 
meal  and  for  an  hour  afterwards,  while  she  told 
us  anecdotes  of  officers  and  officers'  wives  who  had 
stayed  in  her  rooms.  She  had  had  wounded 
officers  from  the  Boer  War,  and  militia  officers 
during  the  summer  training,  and  ordinary  officers 
belonging  to  the  permanent  garrison  which  is 
cooped  up  in  a  great  barracks  over  the  town  of 
Kinsale.  If  we  asked  for  honey,  she  once  knew  an 
officer  who  was  a  great  one  for  honey,  and  if  we 
praised  the  air  of  the  headland,  she  once  knew  a 
sick  officer,  who  had  come  there  so  white  and  weak 


I 


KINSALE  189 

— "  Child  of  grace,  I  was  sure  he  was  done  for  in 
this  world,  and  he  looking  more  dead  than  alive," 
— but  in  a  fortnight  his  cheeks  were  as  brown  as 
brown, — "  and  eat  ?  Child,  he  could  eat  three 
of  you  !  "  Similarly,  when  we  had  no  drink  at  our 
meals,  we  were  supported  by  numerous  precedents 
of  abstemious  officers,  and,  when  the  washing 
was  brought  back,  I  had  a  lecture  on  the  airing 
of  underclothing,  with  a  tragic  tale  of  a  young 
officer  lodging  in  these  rooms  who  had  once  put  on 
a  woollen  undershirt  without  airing  it,  and  had 
caught  a  chill  on  his  kidneys  and  died. 

Every  evening  Mrs.  Dermott  talked  the  sun 
out  with  these  and  similar  mem.ories,  talked  till 
the  breath  left  her  and  she  stood  over  us  in  the 
quarter  light,  her  lips  shaking  as  she  waited  for  it 
to  return.  Her  turns  of  speech,  however,  her 
acute  intelligence,  her  immense  brooding  kindli- 
ness, her  deep  humanity,  made  even  her  army 
gossip  not  only  bearable  but  in  the  end  desirable. 
Perhaps  my  liking  for  her  grew  because  she  lifted 
her  hands  in  praise  of  the  north  of  Ireland  even 
higher  than  in  praise  of  British  officers. 

"  I  always  say,"  she  declared — that  was  when 
she  was  telling  us  how  cheaply  she  could  get  us  a 
section  of  honey,  for  which  we,  as  visitors,  might 
be  charged  a  higher  price — "  that  the  north  of 
Ireland  people  are  the  honestest  people  in  the 
world.  In  the  north  of  Ireland  nobody  ever 
would  take  advantage  of  a  stranger." 


190  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

I  knew  that  even  in  the  north  there  are  ex- 
ceptions, but  none  the  less  I  did  not  deprecate 
the  praise. 

"  No,"  she  went  on  ;  "  in  the  north  of  Ireland  " 
— she  always  gave  the  full  phrase  and  pronounced 
it  almost  like  "  de  nort'  of  Ireland  "  in  the  old- 
fashioned  way — "  in  the  north  of  Ireland  nobody 
will  try  to  put  upon  you,  and  nobody  will  be  put 
upon.  They  won't  stand  it,"  she  declared,  raising 
her  voice  vigorously.  Her  eyes  twinkled  at  the 
sides  of  her  Roman  nose.  "  See  here."  She  spread 
an  example  before  us.  "  In  de  sout'  of  Ireland 
a  poor  man  can't  get  married  without  he  paying 
a  pound,  two  pound,  three  pound,  to  the  priest. 
I  say  to  a  priest  one  day,  '  You  should  go  to  the 
north  of  Ireland  and  try  putting  them  charges  on 
the  people.  The  people  in  the  north  of  Ireland 
would  show  you  mighty  quick.  You  don't  catch 
the  north  of  Ireland  people  paying  you  two  and 
three  pound,  and  they  not  able  to  afford  it.'  Oh, 
I  told  him  out  straight,  I  did,  and  I  don't  know  if 
he  liked  it,  but  it  was  the  truth,  child." 

Kinsale  Harbour,  in  spite  of  all  the  talk  about 
officers,  and  of  the  fact  that  you  could  not  go  out 
on  the  road  without  meeting  some  soldier  posting 
along  in  putties  and  with  a  gun,  and  occasionally 
the  half  of  a  khaki  regiment,  was  a  place  of 
entrancing  gentleness  and  beauty.  When  once 
you  have  left  the  town  and  climbed  the  steep 
roadway  known  as  Breakheart  Hill,  and  reached 


KINSALE  191 

the  high  level  road  between  field-walls  made  of 
what  looked  like  petrified  faggots  of  wood,  you 
have  the  stretch  of  a  gay  world  of  blue  under  you, 
pouring  round  the  headlands  into  the  distant 
colourless  waste  of  the  ocean.  After  passing 
Charles  Fort,  you  need  the  road  no  longer,  but 
turn  down  a  slope  with  a  makeshift  plot  of 
coastguards'  graves  in  the  middle  of  it  and  some 
targets  for  rifle  practice  farther  on,  till,  crossing 
a  crumbling  bridge,  you  come  to  a  path  along  the 
border  of  the  water.  It  is  a  world  of  heather  and 
brambles  and  bees  and  an  infrequent  tethered 
goat  and  rocky  passages  that  you  find  here  dow^n 
by  the  sea.  Then,  after  less  than  a  mile  of 
circuitous  walking,  you  come  on  a  little  white  cove 
of  fishermen's  cottages,  with  a  tide  of  children 
pouring  out  of  the  door  of  one  of  them  and  dogs 
lying  flat  in  the  neighbourhood,  half  asleep  and 
half  on  guard.  Down  below  on  the  pebble  beach 
the  boats  are  lying  idle.  Two  soldier-boys  are 
stooping  and  picking  up  stones  to  skim  along 
the  surface  of  the  water.   .   .   . 

This  is  the  third  day  we  have  wandered  here. 
We  pass  round  a  bend  in  the  path,  and  see  a 
hundred  yards  in  front  of  us  an  old  woman 
labouring  along  with  a  red  handkerchief  tied 
round  her  head  and  a  sack  humping  her  shoulders. 
She  staggers  a  pace  or  two  behind  the  back  of  an 
aged  man,  who  creeps  along  on  little  stiff  bow-legs, 
and   they  seem  to  be  screaming  at  each  other 


192  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

like  gulls  through  the  wind — those  gulls  which  are 
clamouring  in  the  wake  of  disappearing  porpoises 
out  in  the  bay.  You  would  swear  that  the  man 
and  the  woman  were  quarrelling  with  each  other  ; 
at  least,  you  would  think  that  the  woman  was 
shrilly  nagging  at  the  stiff  old  back  in  front  of 
her,  and  that  the  man  was  crawling  home  van- 
quished, and  only  able  to  utter  an  intermittent 
squeak  in  answer.  As  we  come  nearer,  however, 
we  find  that  the  old  man — a  very  perfect  gentle 
fisherman — and  the  woman  are  exchanging  gossip 
and  grave  thoughts  in  the  friendliest  way  in  Irish, 
and  that  the  shrillness  is  but  a  piece  of  age  and  a 
result  of  walking  and  talking  in  single  file  in  a  high 
wind.  The  man  and  woman  turn  round  to  greet 
us  in  the  name  of  God.  She  looks  round  at  us 
from  her  bent  shoulders  and  surveys  us  from  strong 
dark  eyes  and  a  deep-ridged  brow  with  strands 
of  grey-black  hair  parted  over  it.  Ah,  she 
declares,  after  we  have  been  talking  for  a  while, 
there  used  to  be  plenty  of  Irish,  good  Irish,  spoken 
in  these  parts,  but  the  most  of  it  was  dead  with 
the  old  people.  From  the  language  we  go  on 
to  talk  about  the  songs.  She  shakes  her  head 
gloomily. 

"  Ni  raibh  abhrdn  ar  bith  agam  ariamh  "  (I 
never  had  any  songs),  she  called  out  in  her  loud 
sad  voice  into  the  wind.  "  Bhi  me  ro-dhubh- 
chroidheach  i  gcomhanaidhe.  Do  you  under- 
stand what  I'm  saying  ?     I  never  had  any  songs," 


KINSALE  193 

she  translated  for  us.  "  I  was  always  too  down- 
hearted." 

She  went  on  shaking  her  head  and  sighing  as 
she  stumbled  forward. 

"  It's  only  this  present  year  my  man  died,"  she 
told  us,  "  and  he  sixty-nine  years  of  age.  If 
he  had  lived  till  November  next,  he  would  have 
qualified  for  the  pension.  He  was  a  pilot.  He 
took  the  sway  of  all  the  pilots  in  Cork  Harbour. 
I  had  four  sons  to  him,  and  two  of  them  died,  and 
they  just  after  getting  appointments  under  the 
Government,  and  the  others  went  to  America. 
Up  in  that  white  house  at  the  end  of  the  road," 
she  went  on,  nodding  to  a  lane  that  broke  away 
from  the  coast-path,  "  they  were  all  born.  And 
now  I'm  living  in  it  all  by  myself  with  nobody 
at  all  keeping  me  company  except  Almighty  God 
and  His  Blessed  Mother." 

The  old  man  turned  round  and,  apparently  not 
having  heard  all  this,  said  in  a  shrill,  cracked 
voice — ■ 

"  Her  husband  was  a  pilot,  sir.  They  say  there 
was  never  his  equal  to  be  found  in  this  part  of 
Ireland." 

"  Well,"  the  woman  went  on,  following  her  own 
trend  of  thought,  as  she  adjusted  the  burden  to 
her  back,  "  the  pensions  is  a  great  blessing  to  the 
poor." 

"  They  are,  they  are,"  piped  the  old  man.  It 
was  Friday,  and  they  had  just  been  in  to  get  them 
13 


194  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

at  the  Kinsale  post  office.  "  You've  seen  the 
forms,  sir  ?  "  And  he  brought  out  what  looked 
like  a  book  of  five-shilling  postal  orders,  and  turned 
and  handed  it  to  me  with  an  air  of  pleasure. 

"  But,  God  knows,"  said  the  woman,  "  they 
try  to  get  it  back  out  of  you  in  rates.  Ten  shillings 
they  want  to  charge  me  on  that  house  of  mine,  and 

when  I  went  in  to  speak  to  Mr. in  Kinsale 

about  it,  and  asked  him  what  I  got  for  it,  he  said 
it  was  for  the  roads.  '  The  roads ! '  I  said  to  him, 
'  and  me  living  a  mile  away  from  any  road  at  all 
in  an  old  lane  between  two  hills  of  furze  !  If  you 
charge  me  for  roads,  why  don't  you  make  me  a  road 
up  to  my  house  so  that  I  won't  be  having  to  tramp 
through  a  bog  of  mud  where  you  wouldn't  drive 
a  cow  ?  '  Ah,  well,"  she  said  suddenly,  "  it's 
here  I  turn  off.  Bean?iacht  leat,  a  dhuine 
uasail !  Beannacht  leat,  a  hhean  uasal !  "  And 
with  a  sad  face  she  took  her  sorrows  and  her  sack 
off  along  the  muddy  path  up  the  hillside. 

Every  day  of  our  visit  we  had  come  round  the 
coast-path,  and  the  old  man  had  on  each  occasion 
welcomed  us  as  a  friend.  He  lived  here  in  the 
cove  from  which  the  old  woman's  path  went  up 
the  slope — he  and  his  son  and  his  son's  children. 
He  was  one  of  those  old  men  whom  to  know  is 
a  religious  experience.  Old  age,  I  suppose,  is 
beautiful  in  all  places  where  the  people  do  not 
spend  their  vigorous  years  in  bawdy  thoughts.  In 
Ireland  the  percentage   of  simple   and   pleasant 


KINS  ALE  195 

people  among  the  old  must  be  as  high  as  in  any 
country  in  the  world.  One  of  my  friends  argues 
that  the  old  people  in  Ireland  are  beautiful 
because  they  are  pagans,  but  ordinary  observers 
will  with  better  cause  relate  those  grey  and  gentle 
folk  to  the  saintly  sort  of  Christianity.  They 
are  of  the  Christian  type  that  you  find  in  the 
fables  and  short  stories  of  Tolstoy.  Theirs  are  the 
heads  of  men  and  women  who  have  become  as 
little  children  :  they  are  gracious  spirits,  blessing 
God  for  sunny  days  on  the  shores  of  want. 

Sentiment  in  those  who  write  is  a  dangerous 
and  at  times  a  damned  thing,  but  this  old,  blue- 
jerseyed  man,  living  in  the  cottage  under  the 
hillside,  made  one  feel  childishly  happy.  He 
asked  us  into  his  house,  before  which  his  sailor 
son  was  sitting  on  a  low  wall,  carving  the  model 
of  a  small  boat,  and  setting  it  in  relief  in  a  box  to 
serve  as  a  sort  of  wall-picture  for  the  children. 
The  daughter-in-law,  a  shy  woman  with  a  head  of 
hair  like  a  consuming  fire,  was  washing  things  in 
the  kitchen,  where  the  fire  on  the  floor  had  gone 
out.  "  Keep  your  hat  on,  keep  your  hat  on," 
the  old  man  said  to  me,  as  I  ducked  under  the 
lintel  and  took  my  hat  in  my  hand  ;  and  a  couple 
of  small  children,  shyly  hiding  in  their  mother's 
skirts,  gazed  at  us  with  more  wonder  than  happi- 
ness. He  gave  a  grandfather's  laugh  at  their 
nervousness,  and  began  to  feel  in  one  of  his 
pockets.     "  Is  this  what  you're  expecting  ?  "  he 


196  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

asked,  producing  a  penny  packet  of  Jacobs's 
Niagara  wafers  and  tearing  the  top  off  it.  "  Ha, 
boy,  you  were  expecting  this."  And  he  began 
to  dole  out  his  biscuits  to  the  two  solemn  children 
— a  big-headed,  red,  sulky  boy,  and  a  girl  with 
curls  as  fine  as  a  baby's  hair.  The  children 
munched  the  biscuits  inattentively,  still  keeping 
their  eyes  and  their  thoughts  on  us.  They  always, 
he  said,  expected  him  to  bring  them  back  a  bag 
of  biscuits  on  Friday  when  he  came  back  from  the 
post  office  with  his  old  age  pension. 

He  had  also  brought  home  with  him  a  share  of 
knowledge  about  us  and  our  family — knowledge 
which  he  had  gathered  in  a  public-house  from 
some  one  who  knew  us.  "  I  take  the  one  drink 
in  the  week,"  he  explained,  in  regard  to  the  public- 
house.  "  When  I  draw  the  pension  on  Friday,  I 
always  have  a  pint  of  stout :  it's  good  medicine." 

He  wanted  to  give  us  tea  while  we  were  there. 
We  were  anxious  to  go  round  to  the  point  of  the 
headland  that  day,  however,  so  we  could  not  wait. 
Our  host  showed  us  out,  lingering  to  look  at  some 
gutted  fish  which  were  drying  on  the  grass 
opposite  his  house  on  the  other  side  of  the  path. 
Those  were  skad,  he  told  us, — good  to  eat, — and  he 
would  have  some  parcelled  up  for  us  by  the  time 
we  came  back  from  our  walk.  Porpoises  were 
playing  in  the  bay,  coming  up  like  great  black 
surges,  with  a  constant  flutter  of  shrill  birds 
rising  and  alighting  over  them  on  the  look  out 


KINSALE  197 

for  fish.  The  old  man  did  not  know  them  as 
porpoises.  He  was  willing  to  compromise  and 
call  them  grampuses,  but  he  had  another  name  for 
them,  like  packers.  He  went  on  to  talk  about  the 
strange  things  of  the  deep.  There  was  a  cave 
somewhere  in  the  bay,  he  said,  where  you  could 
see  the  seals  bobbing  up  and  down — kind  gentle 
creatures  that  would  do  you  no  harm.  Did  we 
know  the  Irish  word  for  a  seal — ron  ?  Did  ever 
we  hear  what  sailors  say  about  the  seal ;  that  "  if 
a  seal  comes  on  a  drownded  body  in  the  water 
it  won't  leave  it,  or  let  any  injury  come  to  it,  but 
will  stay  by  the  drownded  man,  keening  him,  till 
his  friends  come  and  take  him  away  "  ?  Our  friend 
had  little  lore,  however.  He  believed  that  the 
Danes  had  been  on  the  Old  Head  of  Kinsale  and 
fought  a  battle  there,  and  he  gave  us  a  bald  version 
of  the  story  of  how  they  made  ale  from  the  heather 
— a  story  that  one  seems  to  meet  everywhere  in 
Ireland.  Even  when  he  directed  us  towards  the 
end  of  our  journey — an  end  with  the  suggestive 
name  of  Hangman's  Point — ^he  could  give  us  no 
details  about  the  history  of  the  name.  "  They 
say,"  he  related  vaguely,  "  it  was  a  man  who  used 
to  put  up  false  lights  to  wreck  ships.  It  was  at 
the  point  they  hung  him.  That  would  be 
hundreds  of  years  ago."  He  said  he  could  get 
us  a  history  book  from  a  schoolmaster  he  knew, 
which  would  tell  us  all  about  Ireland  and  the 
Danes  and  the  Spaniards.  .  .  . 


198  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

It  was  a  day  of  the  enthusiasms  of  the  air — a  day 
upon  which  bird  and  bee  seemed  to  swing  through 
the  air  with  a  swift  delight  and  ease.  After  we 
had  left  the  cove,  the  coast-path  was  less  marked 
and  earthy ;  it  now  followed  the  edge  of  the 
low  rocks,  a  green  track,  leading  nowhere.  One 
passed  round  a  curve  and  saw  the  wide  sea  at  the 
mouth  of  the  bay  ;  one  went  farther,  and  the 
bay  seemed  to  be  landlocked  once  more.  Down 
among  the  rocks,  the  waters  splashed  into  a 
thousand  gullies,  a  million  little  waves  advancing 
with  a  million  little  voices  and  breaking  into 
fragrance  and  laughter.  One  dark  rock  stood  out 
some  little  way  from  land,  a  grotesque  of  nature. 
Now  it  was  hidden  as  the  height  of  the  water  bore 
over  it,  and  now  the  hollow  sea  fell  from  it  and  left 
it  dripping.  It  was  shaped  in  such  a  way  that, 
amid  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  swirling  tide,  it 
looked  for  all  the  world  like  the  exsurgent  head  of 
a  baby  bear — a  bear  washing  its  screwed-up  face 
with  a  circling  paw,  and  taking  advantage  of 
everybreathing-space  to  scrub  its  cheeks  vigorously 
and  dash  the  water  from  its  eyes.  Outside,  the 
bay  flowed  dark  blue  and  a  desert  for  ships — for, 
owing  to  a  strike,  even  the  fishing-boats  did  not 
trouble  to  put  out.  There  was  nothing  to  disturb 
the  lifelessness  of  the  place  save  those  swarms  of 
birds,  clustered  like  bees  here  and  there  above  the 
water,  where  a  porpoise  would  suddenly  curve 
with  his  slimy  back  out  of  the  deep,  only  to  charge 


KINS  ALE  199 

downwards  immediately  again,  a  bull  of  the  sea, 
after  his  prey. 

One  can  spend  hours  watching  these  beasts 
appear  and  reappear  with  an  astonishing  ex- 
citement. It  appeals  to  all  the  child  that  sur- 
vives in  us,  the  child  to  whom  the  world,  instead 
of  being  an  engine  of  universal  law,  is  a  perpetual 
game  of  miracles.  Sitting  out  of  the  wind,  one 
has  a  miniature  of  the  same  excitement  as  one 
watches  the  divers  breasting  the  small  waves  and 
suddenly  sending  up  their  tails  and  precipitating 
themselves  under  the  water.  But  the  porpoise 
is  so  much  more  volcanic  in  its  appearance,  so 
irresistible  in  its  monstrous  energy,  that  one 
awaits  its  coming  with  a  happy  awe  as  well  as  with 
a  delight  in  surprises. 

Nature  was  all  at  sport  on  this  day  of  sunny 
tumult.  High  up  in  the  air  half  the  gulls  of  the 
world  seemed  to  be  flying,  coursing  upwards  on 
the  slow  beat  of  their  wings,  and  then  allowing 
themselves  to  hang  like  kites  with  wings  outspread 
and  still.  Over  the  water  now  and  then  came  a 
dark  streak  of  humour,  when  a  wild  duck,  leaving 
the  scrimmage  of  gulls  that  screamed  along  the 
track  of  the  porpoises,  would  suddenly  make  off 
for  some  shoreward  destination,  looking  for  all 
the  world  like  a  small  boy  on  a  bicycle  on  an 
express  errand.  The  wild  duck,  as  it  flies,  has  an 
air  of  almost  fearful  responsibility.  \Vhether  it 
is  the  shape  and  size  of  its  wings,  or  whether  it 


200  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

is  that  they  sprout  from  so  high  up  its  back,  it 
always  seems  to  fly  with  anxiety.  Its  long  neck 
extended  like  an  inexpert  swimmer's  as  he  makes 
in  wild  scuffling  haste  towards  the  ladder,  it  surely 
has  a  faster  and  at  the  same  time  stiffer  beat  of 
the  wing  than  any  other  bird  of  its  size.  Having 
thought  of  these  birds  as  messengers  of  the  air, 
one  took  a  new  interest  in  them  as  one  saw  single 
spies  of  them  being  dispatched  at  repeated 
intervals  from  the  porpoise  groups  in  the  bay, 
and  beating  away  across  the  peninsula  with  their 
tidings. 

It  was  our  intention  to  reach  Hangman's  Point 
before  turning  homewards,  but  really  the  por- 
poises and  the  wild  ducks  hung  on  our  tracks  and 
made  game  of  us.  We  were  soon  out  on  a  moun- 
tain-side high  above  the  sea,  where  sheep  moved 
away  from  our  path  on  a  little  wind  of  fear  and 
then  were  borne  back  towards  us  on  a  little  wind 
of  curiosity.  Passing  a  cliff  and  clambering  round 
a  breezy  corner,  we  found  ourselves  suddenly  in 
the  midst  of  the  other  half  of  the  gulls  of  the  world, 
which  with  a  cry  broke  into  the  air  and  left  us  the 
kingdom  of  their  grey  rocks  and  falling  green  as  a 
possession.  Here,  when  the  birds  were  gone,  we 
seemed  to  have  reached  the  absolute  silence,  the 
silence  of  undiscovered  countries.  Down  below, 
far  down,  the  very  sea  seemed  to  be  breaking  itself 
against  the  rocks  with  a  veiled  murmur.  If  a 
man  had  appeared  anywhere  down  yonder,  one 


KINSALE  201 

would  have  suspected  him  like  a  stranger  on  a 
desert  island. 

It  was  our  doom  never  to  reach  Hangman's 
Point,  We  skirted  what  must  have  been  the  last 
bay  on  that  side  of  Kinsale  Harbour,  and  were 
walking  on  the  edges  of  our  boots  along  a  high 
slope  of  green,  when  the  dry  spitting  sound  of 
rifle-fire  reminded  us  that  this  part  of  the  head- 
land was  a  practice-ground  for  the  soldiers,  and  a 
little  farther  on  a  red  flag  struggled  in  the  wind 
and  warned  the  deaf  of  danger.  That  decided  us. 
We  returned  slowly  along  the  high  slope  of  green, 
and  past  the  sheep  that  moved  away  from  us  on 
a  little  wind  of  fear  and  turned  their  faces  back  to 
us  in  a  little  wind  of  curisoity,  past  the  porpoises 
and  the  wild  ducks  and  the  gulls  and  the  divers 
and  the  rock  that  washed  its  face  in  the  waves 
like  a  baby  bear,  and  at  the  end  of  an  hour  or  so 
we  were  back  in  the  cove  again — the  cove  of  the 
old  people  and  the  children.  How  beautiful  and 
yet  how  mean  the  little  hamlet  looked  as  we  came 
round  the  corner  into  view  of  it  again  !  There 
was  no  deep  comfort  of  thatch  roofing  the  houses. 
The  best  of  the  cottages  were  under  dull  slates  : 
others  of  them  stared  blindly  upward  in  a  horror 
of  corrugated  iron.  I  do  not  know  who  is  to 
blame  :  some  Dublin  Castle  Board,  I  believe, 
for  the  old  man  told  me  that  the  Government 
was  his  landlord.  As  for  himself,  he  was  infinitely 
picturesque — grizzled  and  blue  and  generous  with 


202  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

smiles — as  he  stood  at  the  gate  of  his  cottage  with 
its  three  square  yards  of  garden  walled  off  before 
it,  amid  the  huddled  dreariness  of  the  village, 
and  waited  for  us  with  the  parcel  of  skad  in  his 
hand.  (Here  I  may  say  that  we  ate  some  of  the 
skad  when  we  got  back  to  our  rooms,  and  that  a 
meal  of  pieces  of  string  preserved  in  salt  would  have 
had  about  the  same  taste,  and  been  about  equally 
digestible.  How  in  the  world  people  who  live 
largely  on  this  sort  of  thing  through  the  winter — 
how  the  children  who  live  on  it — survive  and 
even  keep  cheerful,  I  do  not  know.  Enemies 
of  social  reform  should  all  be  made  to  live  on 
skad  and  tea  for  a  year  to  enable  them  to  see  at 
least  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  world  needs 
changing.) 

It  came  out  in  the  course  of  our  conversation 
with  the  old  fisherman  that  he  had  never  been 
outside  the  bounds  of  the  County  Cork.  His 
most  memorable  adventures  had  consisted  in 
rowing  parties  of  gentry  and  officers  up  the 
Bandon  River  :  he  glowed  at  mention  of  these 
old  labours  as  a  boy  glows  when  he  relates  how 
he  showed  the  way  to  a  famous  man  or  picked 
up  a  parcel  for  a  beautiful  actress.  His  son,  with 
a  breaker  of  red  hair  curling  over  his  forehead, 
seemed  less  satisfied  with  so  limited  a  field  of 
experience.  Courteous  and  kindly,  as  he  carved 
away  at  his  wooden  bas-relief  of  a  boat,  he 
spoke   as   a   man  with  a   restless  spirit  in  him. 


KINSALE  203 

Perhaps,  however,  it  was  only  the  enforced 
idleness  of  the  fishermen's  strike  that  gave  him 
this  air. 

Other  people  spoke  to  us,  and  other  people's 
dogs  barked  at  us,  as  we  returned  through  the 
village.  On  a  ragged  patch  of  green  near  the  end 
of  it  an  old  sailor  with  a  Kruger  whisker  round  his 
throat  lay  on  his  stomach,  and,  as  we  passed, 
called  out  that  it  was  a  fine  day.  He  was  on  his 
feet  an  instant  afterwards  and  beside  us  for 
conversation.  He  was  a  low-sized  man  with 
something  of  a  stage  Irishman's  face,  wizened 
and  freckled  and  scabbed  and  keen.  He  and  the 
fisherman  might  have  stood  as  twin  types  of 
experience  and  innocence.  Every  freckle  on 
his  face  seemed  to  be  a  letter  in  the  alphabet  of 
mischief.  His  red-rimmed  eyes  looked  as  though 
they  had  in  their  time  seen  the  tree  of  the  know- 
ledge of  good  and  evil.  He  was  wearing  a  jersey 
and  an  old  sea-hat,  and  was  chewing  a  head  of 
grass.  As  he  put  his  hand  towards  his  mouth, 
you  could  see  that  one  of  his  fingers  was  missing. 
When  he  spoke  his  mouth  skewed  up  one  side  of 
his  face,  like  a  gurnet's. 

He  told  us  that  he  had  seen  us  passing  through 
the  cove  before,  and  speaking  to  the  people  at 
the  other  cottage.  "  Ah  !  "  he  said,  twisting  his 
face  and  moving  his  shoulders  in  a  pitying  way, 
"  decent  people  !  decent  people  !  But  them 
that  has  never  travelled,  what  have  they  to  talk 


204  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

about  ?  A  man  that  has  never  been  away  from 
home  hasn't  much  conversation." 

An  obvious  question  brought  out  the  fact  that 
he  himself  had  been  in  the  British  Navy  and,  after 
that,  had  voyaged  in  fishing-boats  round  all  the 
shores  of  Ireland.  Hearing  what  part  of  Ireland 
I  came  from,  he  went  through  the  catalogue  of 
all  the  northern  harbours,  naming  them  one  by 
one  as  though  each  name  itself  conjured  up  some 
glory  of  a  life  of  adventure.  Greenore,  Belfast, 
Larne,  Portrush,  Burtonport,  Westport — these  are 
a  few  of  the  places  he  had  laboured  past  in  his 
long  harvesting. 

"  It  was  in  Belfast,"  he  said,  holding  up  his 
mutilated  hand  to  us,  "  I  was  in  hospital  the 
time  I  had  to  lose  my  finger.  It  was  a  dog-fish 
bit  me.  Did  you  ever  see  a  dog-fish,  ma'am  ? 
Like  a  small  shark  it  is ;  and  the  most  painful 
thing  !  Still  and  all,  the  pain  I  could  endure. 
I  don't  think  there's  any  man  living  could  endure 
worse  pain  nor  I  can  and  say  nothing.  No,  it 
was  the  lying  idle  in  hospital,  and  the  sick  and  the 
dying  and  the  dead  all  around  me,  and  nothing  to 
do  all  day  but  turn  from  my  side  on  to  my  back 
and  from  my  back  on  to  my  side — well,  I  tell  you 
I  used  to  lie  there  and  let  groans  out  of  me  like 
the  dying.  '  Have  patience  !  '  says  one  of  the 
nurses  one  day, when  she  heard  me,  'have  patience, 
man  !  '  '  Patience  !  '  says  I.  *  Woman,  if  I  had 
to  have  patience,  I  would  be  dead  long  ago  !     If 


KINSALE  205 

you  were  out  in  a  storm,  and  the  ship  in  dinger, 
what  good  would  patience  be  to  you.  then  ?  It's 
the  activity  of  the  sailor,'  says  I,  '  keeps  the  ship 
from  going  down.'  No,"  he  went  on,  with  cocky 
self-satisfaction,  "  I  never  was  a  patient  man.  .  .  . 
It  would  be  a  nice  day,  sir,  to  go  back  by  boat  for 

a  change.     Did  the "  (naming  the  people  in 

the  fisherman's  cottage)  "  not  offer  you  a  boat  to 
take  you  home  in  ?  It's  queer  they  wouldn't 
have  offered  to  row  you  over  :  twenty  minutes 
would  do  it.  ...  I  have  a  boat  down  on  the 
beach." 

Certainly  there  was  allurement  in  the  sun  and 
in  the  innumerable  serpent  tides — and  in  the 
sailor  !  But  then  the  wind  swept  across  the  water 
like  charging  hosts,  and,  over  on  the  far  side  of 
the  bay  outside  Sandy  Cove,  seemed  to  be  con- 
juring flights  of  snowy  birds  out  of  the  bosom  of 
the  sea.  The  old  man  assured  us,  however,  that 
there  was  no  danger  .  .  .  admitted  there  would 
be  danger  going  over  to  Sandy  Cove,  and  swore  he 
wouldn't  take  a  boat  over  there  if  he  was  offered 
five  pounds  for  it.  He  knew  the  sea,  he  declared, 
and  rowing  round  close  to  the  shore  would  be  as 
safe  as  walking. 

Easily  persuaded,  we  went  down  to  the  beach, 
with  a  black  dog  following  us,  while  the  old  sailor 
scuffled  off  to  one  of  the  cottages  for  his  rowlocks. 
With  a  push  we  had  the  boat  into  the  water — and 
the  wind.    With  quick  movements  and  a  trampling 


2o6  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

of  boards,  the  sailor  had  got  himself  between  the 
oars  and  was  pulling  us  out,  an  uneasy  cockleshell, 
into  the  gurly  sea.  He  was  now  as  merry  as  a 
midget.  He  was  triumph  in  miniature  who, 
having  met  an  easy  victory  in  two  simple  strangers, 
now  went  forth  against  the  mighty  Ocean  itself. 

"  What  age  would  you  take  me  to  be,  ma'am  ?  " 
He  sent  a  voice  of  pride  and  high  spirits  into  the 
wind. 

Smiling,  we  refused  to  guess. 

"  Eighty- three,  ma'am,"  he  declared,  with  a 
great  tug  at  the  oars — "  eighty-three  on  my  last 
birthday." 

"  Good  God  !  "  I  thought  to  myself,  as  the 
stern  went  deep  in  a  wave  and  the  wind  whirled 
the  nose  of  the  boat  round  towards  the  shore, 
"  and  to  an  old  man  of  eighty- three  we  have 
entrusted  our  lives." 

"  I  was  nearly  running  in  the  pensioners'  race 
at  the  Sports  on  Monday,"  he  bellowed,  for  the 
wind  made  talking  difficult,  "but  at  the  last  minute 
I  turned  back.  Ah,  I  could  have  won  it.  But  I 
wasn't  going  to  be  laughed  at  !  " 

The  Irish  sense  of  humour,  in  the  decadence 
of  the  last  hundred  years,  seems  to  have  found 
something  especially  delightful  in  the  grotesque- 
ness  of  age.  Possibly  it  is  because  there  have  been 
such  a  disproportionate  number  of  old  people  in 
the  country,  and  because  in  the  very  poorest  and 
most  illiterate  of  them  there  is  such  a  strain  of 


KINSALE  207 

wild  individuality.  Whatever  may  be  the  reason 
of  this  mingling  of  humour  with  antiquity,  these 
old  age  pensioners'  races  have  been  a  popular 
feature  during  the  last  year  or  so  at  Irish  Sports, 
and  there  had  been  such  a  race  at  the  bank 
holiday  sports  in  Kinsale. 

Out  in  the  bay  coming  in  an  opposite  direction 
to  ourselves  was  a  boat  crowded  with  soldiers  in 
khaki.  It  seems  to  be  a  usual  thing  for  the 
soldiers  to  row  part  of  the  way  to  the  practice- 
ground  instead  of  walking  by  the  road.  They 
were  making  only  the  poorest  progress  in  this 
instance  against  the  difficulties  of  wind  and  tide. 
Half  a  dozen  oars  were  out  and  half  a  dozen 
soldiers  were  tugging  at  them.  Each  soldier, 
however,  seemed  to  be  pulling  in  a  different 
direction.  The  oars  were  all  up  and  down  with 
the  irregularity  of  sticks  in  a  melee  at  a  fair.  In 
the  result,  the  boat  was  proceeding  now  sideways, 
now  backways,  every  way  indeed  except  directly 
towards  the  cove  we  had  just  left.  Now  it 
advanced  like  a  crab  with  half  its  claws  broken  ; 
now  it  went  round  and  round  like  a  dizzy  hen. 
The  old  sailor,  with  his  eye  sweeping  over  the  sea, 
watched  the  helplessness  of  the  soldiers  cheerfully. 

"  Ah,"  he  commented,  with  a  grin  at  their 
uneven  splashing,  "  you  might  as  well  have  a  lot 
of  pigs  in  a  boat  as  them  fellows  !  " 

As  for  ourselves  we  were  going  forward  and  with 
a  kind  of  straightness,  but  each  swirl  of  the  tide 


2o8  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

seemed  to  lift  us  sidewaj^s  a  considerable  distance 
towards  the  edge  of  the  rocks.  I  watched  those 
rocks  drawing  nearer  with  an  uneasy  fascination, 
and  began  to  wonder  whether  even  one  of  us 
would  be  saved,  or  whether  our  infant  child 
would  be  left  a  complete  orphan.  Evidently  the 
old  fellow  read  my  thoughts,  for  he  looked  over, 
scanning  me  closely,  and  said  :  "  Well,  if  I  was 
asked  my  opinion  whether  you  or  the  lady  had 
the  most  courage,  I  would  award  the  prize  to  the 
lady  !  " 

I  admitted  her  superiority. 

"  An',''  said  the  eighty-three-year-old,  making 
a  general  reflection,  as  the  boat  was  lifted  on  a 
windy  wave  another  ten  yards  nearer  destruction, 
"  them  that  hasn't  the  courage  should  stay  on  the 
land.  The  fearless  man  will  come  through  a 
storm  where  the  heartless  man  will  be  drownded." 

The  words  had  hardly  been  spoken  when  we 
got  into  calmer  water,  and  the  old  fellow  was 
soon  pulling  us  along  under  the  grey  walls  of  Fort 
Charles  and  round  to  the  boat-slip  that  meant 
home  to  us,  and,  before  we  knew,  we  were 
clambering  out  of  the  swaying  and  pitching  boat 
and  the  sailor  was  staring  at  the  coin  which  I  had 
given  him  as  though  it  were  excessive,  which  it 
was  not. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  with  a  chuckle,  "  asking's 
getting.  And  the  — ■ — "  (naming  our  other 
friends)  "  might  have  had  ye,  if  they  only  had  to 


KINSALE  209 

have  my  spunk.  Good-bye,  ma'am.  Good-bye, 
sir.  Thank  ye.  The  blessing  of  God  on  you  !  " 
And  with  a  twirl  of  his  hat,  he  was  down  between 
the  oars  again,  and  throwing  himself  back  into 
the  wind,  as  vain  as  Alan  Breck,  as  freckled  as  a 
turkey  egg,  as  merry  as  a  midget,  as  heroic  as  any 
one  who  ever  went  out  and  wrestled  with  Proteus 
amid  shifting  and  violent  seas  and  overthrew  him. 

At  Kinsale  we  spent  but  little  time  in  wander- 
ing over  old  historical  places — the  object  but  for 
which  we  never  should  have  visited  this  town  by  the 
narrow  waters  at  all.  I  had  eagerly  longed  to  go 
to  Kinsale  ever  since  I  read  the  story  of  the  siege 
of  1 60 1,  when  Don  Juan  del  Aquila  sailed  up  the 
harbour  with  3500  Spanish  men-at-arms  and  held 
the  town  "  for  Christ  and  the  King  of  Spain." 

This  siege  is  one  of  the  most  maddening  in- 
cidents in  Ireland's  maddening  history.  Ireland 
fell  at  Kinsale  disastrously  through  a  kind  of 
accident.  It  was  after  Kinsale  that  Red  Hugh 
O'Donnell,  the  flower  of  lovely  courage  and  fire, 
crossed  to  Spain,  to  be  pursued  by  the  assassin- 
delegate  of  Sir  George  Carew,  President  of 
Munster  and  friend  of  the  great  Cecil.  "  God 
give  him  strength  and  perseverance,"  writes 
Carew  of  the  murderer  to  Mountjoy,  Elizabeth's 
Deputy.  "  I  told  him  I  would  acquaint  your 
lordship  with  it." 

It  was  Kinsale  that  dashed  Hugh  O'Neill,  the 
third  soldier  in  Europe  of  his  age,  according  to 
14      '  .  . 


2IO  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Henri  Quatre,  so  hard  to  the  ground  that,  before 
three  j^ears  were  up,  he  was  the  chief  figure  in 
the  Flight  of  the  Earls  from  RathmuUan  in  Lough 
Swilly — that  sea  sorrow  of  which  the  Four 
Masters  so  finely  said  :  "  It  is  certain  that  the 
sea  hath  not  borne,  and  the  wind  has  not  wafted 
in  modern  times,  a  number  of  persons  in  one 
ship  more  eminent,  illustrious,  and  noble,  in  point 
of  genealogy,  heroic  deeds,  feats  of  arms,  and 
valiant  achievements,  than  they." 

Ireland  may  be  said  to  have  perished  at  Kinsale 
for  a  generation.  And  what  offends  one  most  is 
that  she  had  victory  in  her  grasp,  had  Hugh 
O'Neill  had  his  way.  The  Spaniards  were 
besieged  in  the  town,  the  English  having  captured 
from  them  the  castles  of  Rincorran  on  the  east 
of  the  bay  and  of  Castle-na-Pairc,  still  surviving 
in  a  fragment  on  the  round  little  peninsula,  on  the 
other  side.  Soon  the  English  were  themselves 
besieged,  for  Red  Hugh  O'Donnell  hastened 
down  from  the  north  and  sandwiched  them  in 
between  his  army  and  the  Spaniards  and  the 
town.  To  keep  them  there,  and  let  famine  and 
sickness  do  their  work,  was  all  that  the  Irish  had 
to  do,  as  Hugh  O'Neill  saw,  when  he  arrived  with 
fresh  troops  on  the  21st  of  December.  Already 
6000  of  the  English  had  perished  in  the  three 
months  of  the  siege,  and,  though  Don  Juan  made 
restive  demands  from  within  the  town,  O'Neill 
was  in  favour  of  leaving  it  to  General  Hunger  to 


KINSALE  211 

finish  the  campaign.  Unhappily,  Red  Hugh 
O'Donnell,  ever  a  glutton  for  action,  took  his 
stand  with  Don  Juan,  and  at  a  council  of 
the  chiefs,  O'Neill's  Fabian  policy  was  swept 
aside. 

On  the  night  of  January  the  3rd,  1602,  a  pitchy 
night  of  storm  and  rain,  O'Neill  set  out  with  his 
men  to  surprise  the  English  forces  and  effect 
a  junction  with  del  Aquila.  Misled  by  their 
guides,  blinded  and  buffeted,  they  arrived  at  the 
English  lines,  only  to  find  them  in  battle  order. 
It  is  said  that  Brian  MacMahon,  an  Ulsterman, 
finding  Carew  courteous  enough  to  send  him  a 
bottle  of  whisky  for  which  he  had  asked,  was  so 
inflamed  with  gratitude  that  he  returned  him 
warning  of  the  attack  that  was  in  preparation. 
Whether  or  not  this  part  of  the  story  is  true,  we 
know  that,  on  finding  the  surprise  had  failed, 
O'Neill  made  to  retire  until  O'Donnell  and 
Tyrrell  joined  him,  and  that,  in  the  confusion, 
helped  by  the  storm  and  darkness,  panic  took 
command.  O'Neill  put  forth  all  his  mighty 
courage  to  rally  his  men,  and  O'Donnell  and  the 
others,  coming  up  later,  fought  like  tigers  to 
retrieve  the  situation.  But  Mountjoy  had  seized 
the  key  of  the  fight,  and  there  was  no  recovering 
it.  Don  Juan,  who  was  a  brave  man,  but  had 
little  brains  for  fighting,  surrendered,  and  became 
a  warm  friend  of  Carew's.  "  Surely,"  was  his 
comment  on  the    Irish  whose  national  liberties 


212  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

his  incapacity  had  thrown  away — "  surely  Christ 
never  died  for  this  people." 

It  would  be  ungenerous,  however,  not  to  be 
grateful  to  all  the  decent  Spaniardswho  died  round 
the  walls  of  Kinsale  for  Ireland.  Some  people 
will,  of  course,  contend  that  the  war  was  a 
religious  war,  and  not  a  national  war  at  all. 
Fundamentally,  however,  it  was  not  a  war  of 
religions.  The  Earl  of  Clanrickarde  was  one  of 
the  most  insatiate  of  the  Queen's  soldiers,  and 
like  many  another  of  them  was  a  good  Catholic. 
"  He  killed,"  says  Dr.  P.  W.  Joyce,  "  twenty  men 
with  his  own  hand  in  the  pursuit,  and  he  gave 
orders  that  all  Irish  prisoners  should  be  killed 
the  moment  they  were  taken."  What  a  siege  ! 
What  a  battle  !  What  a  (if  the  word  is  permissible) 
mess-up  ! 

"  It  was  a  terrible  business,"  said  a  young 
Kinsale  man  in  a  shop  to  me  one  day  ;  "  and  it 
seems  to  have  put  such  a  damper  on  the  people 
here  that  they  have  been  depressed  ever  since." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CORK  AND  MALLOW 

If  you  want  to  feel  enthusiastic  about  Ireland, 

you  should  go  to  Cork  on  a  fine  day.     Even  if 

you  go  there  as  we  did  in  a  time  of  mixed  sun  and 

thunder,  you  will  scarcely  find  Cork  other  than 

beautiful.     Like   Dublin    and   like   Limerick,    it 

has  escaped  a  great  deal  of  the  ugliness  of  the 

modern   world.     Though    it   has    its    industries, 

it   is   not   offensively  industrial.     Patrick   Street, 

which  is  the  heart  of  the  city — a  curved  street 

of  excellent,    low,   stucco-fronted    shops — has    a 

leisurely  air,  as  though  it  possessed  the  custom  of 

people  who  were  living  on  pensions  and  inherited 

fortunes.     Even  the  electric  trams  which  swing 

through  the  broad   streets  to   places  with  names 

like   Blackpool  and  Tivoli  are  leisurely,  and   no 

more  think  of  hustling  than  would  the  dancers 

in    an     old  -  fashioned    minuet.      Perhaps    it     is 

because  I  was  brought  up  in  a  tradition  which 

ignored  when  it  did  not  actually  disesteem  the 

south  of  Ireland,  that  cities  like  Cork  and  Limerick 

and  Kilkenny  and  towns  like  Mallow  and  Ennis- 

313 


214  RAMBI.es  in  IRELAND 

corthy  now  in  their  different  ways  perpetually 
bring  me  something  of  the  enthusiasm  of  un- 
expected discoveries.  Cork,  a  fair  island-city 
lying  among  rivers,  with  its  patriotic  statues,  its 
bridges,  and  the  inside-cars,  or  jingles,  that  run 
through  its  streets  with  something  of  the  exotic 
mystery  of  palanquins,  may  have  very  little  to 
show  in  its  buildings  that  is  lovely  in  detail,  but 
the  general  effect  is  certainly  entrancing. 

But  Cork  did  not  treat  us  fairly.  It  hid  itself 
under  a  deluge  during  a  great  part  of  the  time 
that  we  were  there.  Hardly  had  we  arrived  at 
the  top  of  a  steep  hill  to  look  out  over  the  city 
on  Sunday  morning  than  a  thundercloud  began 
pouring  out  its  violence  and  its  rain  till  we  had  to 
hurry  into  a  porch  for  safety.  That  is  why  I 
saw  Cork  only  in  flying  peeps.  Indeed,  the  only 
thing  that  remains  to  me  of  that  vision  from  the 
hill  is  the  piebald  church-tower  in  which  peal  the 
bells  of  Shandon,  half  of  it  white  and  half  of  it 
red,  or,  to  quote  the  poetic  description  of  it, 

"Party-coloured,  like  the  people, 
Red  and  white  stands  Shandon  steeple." 

That  is  the  chief  curiosity  in  the  landscape  of 
Cork.  From  what  I  could  gather  from  a  Corkman, 
an  even  more  striking  curiosity  of  the  city  is  its 
pre-eminent  brains.  Cork  is  quite  satisfied  of  this. 
Corkmen  do  not  argue  the  fact  :  they  merely 
explain  it.     They  tell  you  that  the  province  of 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  215 

which  Cork  is  the  capital  has  never  lost  the 
traditions  of  the  old  Irish  culture — that  even  a 
century  ago  the  bards  of  Munster  were  producing 
scholarly  and  human  poetry.  And,  if  you  want 
a  more  modern  explanation  than  this,  they  will 
attribute  their  intelligence  to  the  influence  of 
the  Christian  Brothers'  schools — excellent  lay 
institutions  which  have  flourished  especially  well  in 
this  county.  Cork  has  unquestionably  a  reputation 
for  taste  and  intellect.  One  hears  it  asserted  even 
to-day  that  there  is  no  quicker  audience  for  the 
drama  to  be  found  anywhere.  It  was  said  in 
the  eighteenth  century  that  the  god  of  music 
seemed  to  have  taken  a  stride  from  the  Continent 
over  England  to  Ireland,  and  that  in  Cork  "  a 
stranger  is  agreeably  surprised  to  flnd  in  many 
houses  he  enters  Italic  airs  saluting  his  ears ;  and 
it  has  been  observed  that  Corelli  is  a  name  in 
more  mouths  than  many  of  our  lord-lieutenants." 
Perhaps  even  to-day  Corelli  is  a  more  popular 
name  in  Cork  mouths  than  the  Lord-Lieutenant's. 
But  it  is  Corelli  with  a  difference. 

As  you  go  through  the  streets  of  Cork  in  this 
present  century,  you  certainly  see  no  signs  of 
that  impassioned  culture  which  amazed  former 
generations.  Even  outside  the  best  book-shop  in 
the  city — and  it  is  a  very  fine  Irish  book-shop — 
you  will  see  a  great  display  of  coloured  picture- 
postcards  with  a  gallery  of  colleens  and  pigs  and 
all  the  other  pseudo-Irish  paraphernalia.     It  is 


2i6  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

these  and  not  the  histories  of  Keating  or  the  poems 
of  Owen  Roe  O'SuUivan  that  summon  you  to 
attention.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  it  is  not  the 
people  of  Cork  who  are  to  blame  for  the  per- 
vasiveness of  these  idiocies,  but  the  multitude  of 
tourists  who  include  Cork  in  their  tour  to  Killarney. 
I  myself  saw  a  tourist  in  the  hotel  where  we 
stayed  addressing  at  least  fifty  of  these  pig 
postcards  during  a  wet  hour  in  the  afternoon. 
What  visitors  to  Ireland  find  to  attract  them  in 
these  intolerable  colleens  with  head  on  one  side 
and  arms  akimbo,  who  exchange  fatuities  about 
kisses  with  turnip-faced  young  men  in  tail-coats, 
is  a  mystery  to  the  mere  Irishman.  Perhaps  it 
adds  to  one's  sense  of  adventure  to  see  the  in- 
habitants of  a  country  in  which  one  is  travelling 
as  grotesque  and  as  unlike  one's  own  friends  and 
relations  as  possible.  Or  perhaps  it  is  that  the 
average  civilised  man  always  prefers  unreality  to 
reality — wish-wash  to  realism.  Add  to  this  the 
fact  that  one  likes  to  believe  in  the  existence  of 
otherwise  nice  people  who  do  not  take  regular 
baths  and  who  sleep  in  the  same  room  with  the 
pigs.  It  is  a  kind  of  flattery  to  one's  own  efficient 
self  to  believe  that  such  persons  are  upon  the 
earth.  .  .  . 

It  was  the  rains  of  Cork  that  prevented  us  from 
seeing  a  championship  hurling-match  while  we 
were  there.  The  Irish  games  have  remained  alive 
in  Munster  more  generally  than  in  any  of  the 


nmoB 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  217 

other  provinces,  and  this  was  expected  to  be  the 
great  match  of  the  year,  so  it  was  something  of  a 
misfortune  for  us  that  a  deluge  kept  falling  for 
hours  so  that  the  game  had  to  be  put  off. 

We  went  out,  instead,  along  the  river  promenade 
which  is  called  the  Marina,  opposite  which  rises 
a  wooded  hill  thickset  with  the  houses  of  the  rich 
and  respectable.  But  here  a  thunderstorm  broke 
out  of  the  sky  above  us,  and  we  hailed  a  ferry-boat 
to  take  us  over  the  low  muddy  river  to  the  tram- 
line on  the  other  side.  .  .  . 

But,  when  I  started  out,  I  did  not  really  intend 
to  see  much  of  the  big  cities,  I  set  far  more 
store  by  little  places  like  Cong  and  Killorglin  and 
Kinsale  than  by  capitals  like  Cork.  And  of  the 
small  towns  there  was  none  to  which  I  looked 
forward  more  eagerly  than  Mallow.  I  wanted  to 
go  there,  not  out  of  veneration  for  the  memory  of 
the  Rakes  of  Mallow,  immortalised  in  the  song, 
but  because  the  prophet  of  all  that  is  best  in 
modern  Ireland  was  born  there  almost  a  hundred 
years  ago.     This  was  Thomas  Davis. 

I  expected  to  find  Mallow  very  conscious  of  its 
glory  in  having  given  birth  to  so  great  a  man. 
Expected,  but  in  vain.  It  has  called  one  of  its 
streets  after  him,  and  the  name  of  the  street  and 
of  William  O'Brien  Street,  which  is  a  continuation 
of  it,  is  up  in  Irish.  But  the  waiter  at  the  hotel 
had  never  heard  of  him  all  the  same. 

I  asked  him  where  Davis's  birthplace  was,  but 


2i8  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

he  shook  his  old  white  whiskers,  said  that  he  did 
not  know  the  gentleman's  name,  and  that  he  must 
have  lived  in  Mallow  before  his  time.  I  asked  an 
old  workman  in  the  street,  and  he  showed  me  a 
renovated  public-house  and  said  it  was  there,  but 
the  people  of  the  public-house  knew  as  little  of 
Davis  as  of  Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  and  though 
the  landlady,  with  immense  hospitality,  sent  out 
to  various  gentlemen  to  find  out  what  we  wanted, 
while  she  told  us  how  Mallow  had  been  ruined 
by  the  coming  of  the  railway,  and  discoursed 
hostilely  on  Sir  Horace  Plunkett's  co-operative 
movement,  we  could  get  nothing  from  anybody 
except  opinions,  opinions,  and  opinions.  I  am 
not  really  fond  of  looking  at  houses  where  great 
men  were  born,  but  Davis's  birthplace  is  different. 
I  have  enough  veneration  for  Davis  to  be  excited 
by  coming  on  the  least  trace  or  signature  of  him. 
Even  to  be  in  Mallow,  with  its  quaint  old  bay- 
windowed  houses,  its  ghost  of  an  old  spa,  and  its 
air  of  having  been  left  over  from  the  coaching 
days,  was  exciting,  for  had  not  Davis  idled  in 
it  as  a  boy  ?  Wild  wind  was  blowing  about  the 
streets — it  blew  our  umbrella  inside  out — as  we 
prosecuted  our  search  for  the  house,  and  pro- 
secuted it  in  vain,  though  we  called  to  our 
assistance  an  innumerable  host  of  inhabitants  of 
the  place,  from  solicitors  to  stonebreakers.  The 
stonebreaker  knew  where  a  Miss  Davis  lived  just 
outside  the  town,  but  knew  nothing  of  Thomas ; 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  219 

he  guessed  he  must  be  some  relative  of    Miss 
Davis's. 

As  a  good  many  readers  may  be  almost  as 
ignorant  of  the  great  Irishman  as  the  people 
of  Mallow  were,  it  may  be  as  well  to  record  a  few 
of  the  facts  of  his  life.  Born  here  on  the  14th 
of  October  1814,  the  son  of  a  surgeon  in  the 
English  army,  he  grew  up  especially  proud  of 
two  things — one,  that  his  father  was  in  some  sort 
a  soldier ;  and  the  second,  that  his  mother,  Mary 
Atkins,  had  in  her  veins  the  blood  of  the  house  of 
O'Sullivan  Beare.  Soldierly  as  Davis  ultimately 
was,  and  proudly  Irish  as  he  became  in  every  fibre 
of  his  body,  however,  it  is  difficult  to  say  at  what 
period  in  his  life  he  grew  to  be  like  the  Davis  of 
history.  We  are  told  that  in  his  childhood  he 
was  delicate,  that  at  school  he  had  no  taste  for 
the  boisterousness  and  games  of  those  around  him, 
and  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  quotes  one  of 
Davis's  relations  as  saying  that  "  when  he  had 
grown  up,  if  you  asked  him  the  day  of  the  month, 
the  odds  were  he  could  not  tell  you.  He  never 
was  any  good  at  handball  or  hurling,  and  knew  no 
more  than  a  fool  how  to  take  care  of  the  little 
money  his  father  left  him.  He  saw  him  more 
than  once  in  tears  listening  to  a  common  country 
fellow  playing  old  airs  on  a  fiddle,  or  sitting  in  a 
drawing-room  as  if  he  were  in  a  dream,  when 
other  young  people  were  enjoying  themselves." 
At  Trinity  College  he  seems  to  have  been  for  a 


220  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

long  time  a  silent  and  undistinguished  student, 
whom  the  most  brilliant  among  his  contemporaries 
regarded  with  a  touch  of  patronage  as  a  rather 
dull  person.  It  was  at  Trinity,  however,  that 
he  met  Wallis,  the  talker,  the  arm-chair  philo- 
sopher, the  "  Professor,"  as  he  called  himself, 
"  of  things  in  general  and  Patriotism  in  par- 
ticular." Wallis  himself  never  did  anything  of 
great  note  in  the  world — he  would  be  despised 
by  most  people,  indeed,  as  a  mere  talker,  like 
Turgenieif's  Rudin — but  he  apparently  served 
his  purpose  in  life  by  showing  Davis  the  way. 
Davis's  soul,  one  imagines,  was  dimly  seeking  after 
Nationalism  from  a  very  early  age.  His  tears 
while  he  listened  to  the  old  country  fiddler  and 
the  emotions  of  which  he  sings  in  "  A  Nation 
Once  Again  "  go  to  prove  this.  But  Wallis,  no 
doubt,  helped  him  to  realise  himself,  his  destiny, 
and  his  duty  to  the  Irish  nation.  "  I  loosed," 
said  Wallis,  with,  perhaps,  an  exaggerated  egotism, 
"  the  tenacious  phlegm  that  clogged  Davis's 
nature  and  hid  his  powers  from  himself  and  the 
world." 

To  us  one  of  the  most  interesting  facts  about 
Davis  as  a  student  is  that  he  left  College  a  lover 
of  liberty  and  a  lover  of  Ireland,  though  his  love 
of  liberty  and  love  of  Ireland  had  not  as  yet  been 
fused  into  a  passionate  Nationalism.  He  was  as 
yet  a  Liberal,  and  his  first-published  work  was  a 
pamphlet  attacking  the  British  House  of  Lords, 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  221 

and  proposing,  not  its  abolition,  but  its  reform. 
It  was  three  years  later  than  this,  in  1 840,  that  his 
Presidential  address  to  the  Historical  Society- 
made  his  friends  and  contemporaries  realise  for 
the  first  time  that  they  had  in  Davis  a  comrade  of 
strange  passions  and  a  strange  philosophy — the 
passions  and  the  philosophy  of  a  patriot.  In 
unselfish  patriotism  alone,  he  warned  his  hearers 
in  this  address,  lay  the  only  means  of  making 
democracy  a  blessing  and  not  a  curse  to  the  world. 
"  On  the  shore  of  democracy,"  he  said,  "  is  a 
monstrous  danger  ;  no  phantom  is  it,  but  alas ! 
too  real — the  violence  and  forwardness  of  selfish 
men,  regardful  only  of  physical  comfort,  ready  to 
sacrifice  to  it  all  sentiments — the  generous,  the 
pious,  the  just  (victims  in  their  order), — till 
general  corruption,  anarchy,  despotism,  and  moral 
darkness  shall  rebarbarise  the  earth."  Education 
— education  of  the  heart  as  well  as  the  intellect — 
was  the  road  he  pointed  out  towards  the  service 
of  one's  country,  as  well  as  to  the  annihilation  of  a 
selfish  materialism. 

It  was  in  the  next  year,  when  he  was  nearly 
twenty-seven,  after  having  contributed  various 
patriotic  papers  to  the  press,  that  he  made  his 
well-known  defence  on  purely  national  grounds  of 
the  bigoted  and  backward  Royal  Dublin  Society 
against  the  British  Government. 

At  this  time,  he  and  his  friend  Dillon  were  full  of 
schemes  for  the  revival  of  the  spirit  of  Nationality 


222  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

among  Protestants,  both  Whig  and  Tory,  and  they 
were  lucky  enough  to  persuade  the  proprietor  of 
the  Morning  Register  to  give  them  control  of 
his  paper  for  a  limited  period,  in  order  to  prove 
w^hether  or  not  there  was  a  public  to  listen  to  their 
sanguine  theories.  The  experiment  was  a  failure. 
The  circulation  went  down  instead  of  up.  The 
year  is  memorable,  however,  because  in  it  Davis 
definitely  attached  himself  to  the  national  and 
popular  cause,  and  became  a  member  of  the 
Repeal  Association.  It  is  memorable,  too,  because 
in  it  Davis  first  met  Duffy,  and  thus  began  a 
friendship  and  union  which  was  to  give  Ireland 
The  Nation,  the  greatest  national  journal  it  has 
ever  known — to  give  Ireland  more  than  this,  a 
new  national  soul.  Not  that  Duffy  immediately 
warmed  to  Davis.  He  tells  us  frankly  in  his 
Life  in  Two  Hemispheres,  that  he  was  more 
pleased  with  Dillon  at  first.  Davis,  he  says, 
"  was  able  and  manifestly  sincere  ;  but  at  first 
sight  I  thought  him  dogmatic  and  self-conceited 
— a  strangely  unjust  estimate,  as  it  proved  in  the 
end."  This  is  only  one  of  the  several  proofs 
that  Davis,  for  all  the  fascination  and  enthusiasm 
of  his  nature,  did  not  charm  every  one  or  make 
them  all  fall  in  love  with  him  at  first  sight,  as 
Nationalists  are  sometimes  inclined  to  picture 
him  as  doing.  His  were  the  deep  and  gener- 
ous qualities  which  do  not  necessarily  attract 
immediately. 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  223 

With  the  first  number  of  The  Nation,  published 
in  October  1843,  began  a  new  life  for  Davis. 
From  this  till  the  proclamation  of  the  Clontarf 
meeting,  a  year  later,  was  the  period  of  his  most 
unbounded  enthusiasms  and  his  highest  hopes. 
Seeing  O'Connell's  tremendous  influence  among 
the  people,  seeing  how  disciplined  the  nation 
showed  itself  in  its  magnificent  temperance 
crusade  under  Father  Mathew,  amazed  and 
delighted  hj  those  large  meetings  where  something 
like  a  million  Irishmen  could  meet  and  disperse 
in  perfect  dignity  and  order,  rejoiced  not  only  by 
the  adhesion  of  the  Catholic  Bishops  and  of  many 
of  the  educated  Protestants,  but  by  the  belief 
that  the  "  Protestants  of  the  lower  order,"  to 
use  his  own  phrase,  were  now  neutral,  he  saw 
Ireland  in  his  imagination  preparing  for  another 
1782.  Davis  has  been  called  "the  saint  of  Irish 
Nationality."  This  is  true,  but  it  is  only  a  half- 
truth.  He  was  also  the  soldier-statesman  of 
Nationality.  One  is  constantly  struck,  in  reading 
his  poems  and  letters,  with  the  thought  how 
capable  he  was  of  becoming  the  Washington  of 
Ireland.  "  I  am  for  the  sharper  remedies,"  he 
wrote  in  one  of  his  letters  to  a  friend,  though  he 
went  in  for  no  foolish  worship  of  bloodshed. 
His  attitude  to  the  Federalists  is  worth  recalling 
in  these  days  when  talk  of  Federalism  is  again  in 
the  air.  He  believed  that  England  would  yield  a 
measure  of  self-government  to  O'Connell  in  com- 


224  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

bination  with  the  Federalists,  as  she  had  yielded  an 
independent  Parliament  to  the  Volunteers.  This 
was  his  deepest  hope,  and  for  this  purpose  he 
desired  to  see  the  Federalists  growing  into  a 
strong  party,  holding  that  no  party  which  be- 
lieved in  the  nation,  however  limited  their 
conception  of  nationality,  could  be  anything  but 
a  blessing  to  Ireland.  He  wrote  to  Maddyn  : 
"  If  you  can  quietly  get  a  Federal  Government,  I 
shall,  for  one,  agree  to  and  support  it.  If  not, 
then  anything  but  what  we  are." 

During  all  this  time  we  find  him  pressing 
forward  the  necessity  of  making  Ireland's  cause 
known  before  the  world,  and  cementing  friend- 
ships with  France  and  America,  and  trying  to  win 
Taifs  Magazine,  an  organ  of  British  Radicalism, 
to  the  Irish  cause.  During  this  year,  inatod, 
as  ever,  we  find  Davis  acting  both  as  a  great 
fighting  man  and  a  great  conciliator — a  com- 
bination which  we  reverence  in  Mazzini,  in 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  in  most  of  the  noblest 
figures  in  history.  Even  in  his  most  enthusiastic 
moods,  however,  he  was  always  returning  to  the 
thought  which  inspired  his  address  to  the  His- 
torical Society — that  to  patriotism  must  be  added 
education  before  the  greatest  things  can  be 
accomplished.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  probable 
he  was  not  more  disturbed  by  the  low  state  of 
education  in  the  country  than  by  the  vacillating 
policy  of  the  national  leader,  Daniel  O'Connell. 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  225 

When  it  was  suggested,  for  instance,  that  a  Council 
of  Three  Hundred  should  meet  in  Dublin  as  a 
^e  facto  Irish  Parliament,  Davis,  who  had  been 
going  here  and  there  in  the  south  to  discuss  the 
matter  with  representative  men,  wrote  to  Duffy  : 
"  If  O'Connell  would  prearrange,  or  allow  others 
to  prearrange,  a  decided  policy,  I  would  look 
confidently  to  the  Three  Hundred  as  bringing 
the  matter  to  an  issue  in  the  best  way.  As  it  is, 
we  must  try  and  hit  on  some  medium.  We  must 
not  postpone  it  till  Parliament  meets,  for  the 
Three  Hundred  will  not  be  a  sufficiently  fine 
or  brilliant  thing  to  shine  down  St.  Stephen's  and 
defy  its  coercion.  Yet  we  must  not  push  it  too 
quickly,  as  the  country  as  far  as  I  can  see  is  not 
braced  up  to  any  emergency.  Ours  is  a  tremendous 
responsibility,  politically  and  personally,  and  we 
must  see  where  we  are  going."  This  letter,  I 
think,  is  significant  of  many  things  in  the  politics 
of  Davis.  It  shows  him  ready  and  even  eager  for 
action  himself ;  at  once  questioning  the  wisdom 
of  O'Connell  and  recognising  the  fact  that  unless 
they  were  ready  to  work  with  O'Connell,  with  all 
his  limitations.  Nationalists  had  no  prospect  of 
succeeding  in  their  cause  ;  clearly  perceiving  the 
great  need  for  education  among  the  people, 
but  determined  to  do  with  them  the  utmost  that 
circumstances  would  allow. 

There  is  no  need  to  go  into  the  mere  chronology 
of  Davis's  biography.     His  true  biography  is,  after 
15 


226  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

all,  the  story  of  his  thought  and  spirit.  So  I  will 
not  take  up  space  in  reviewing  his  attitude  to 
O'Connell's  acquiescence  in  the  prohibition  of  the 
Clontarf  meeting,  or  the  events  leading  up  to 
his  differences  with  O'Connell  over  the  Queen's 
Colleges  two  years  after.  It  is  only  necessary  to 
say  that  during  all  this  time  his  insistence  upon 
the  need  of  a  national  system  of  education  kept 
growing  stronger,  his  plans  for  furthering  educa- 
tion became  more  detailed,  and  many  of  them 
were  put  in  practice.  It  was  his  educational  en- 
thusiasm that  impelled  him  more  than  once  to 
make  the  attempt  to  withdraw  from  political 
journalism  for  a  short  time  in  order  to  write  an 
Irish  history  ;  and  it  was  only  the  eager  entreaties 
of  his  friends,  who  realised  that  this  would  be  the 
work  not  of  months  but  of  years,  which  kept 
him  to  his  task  at  the  Nation  office.  "  Beside  a 
library,"  he  exclaims  in  one  place,  "  how  poor  are 
all  the  other  greatest  deeds  of  man — his  con- 
stitution, brigade,  factory,  man-of-war,  cathedral 
— how  poor  are  all  miracles  in  comparison  !  " 
Knowledge,  he  held,  was  the  key  to  national 
force,  and  it  was  the  ambition  of  his  life  to  add 
to  the  knowledge  of  Ireland — a  knowledge  which, 
he  believed,  would  bring  the  best  gifts  of  freedom 
in  its  train. 

Again  and  again  he  projected  the  establishment 
of  a  monthly  magazine  in  the  pages  of  which  it 
would   be   possible   to   make   a   fuller   and   more 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  227 

intellectual  appeal  to  the  thoughtful  classes  than 
was  possible  in  the  columns  of  a  weekly  paper. 
His  purpose,  through  all  his  later  life,  one  might 
say,  was  to  make  the  intellect  of  the  country 
national,  and  to  make  the  nationalism  of  the 
country  intellectual.  Education,  he  held,  was  a 
necessary  part  of  even  the  most  active  policy,  as 
may  be  seen  in  a  letter  he  wrote  to  Maddyn, 
when  the  latter  had  introduced  a  character- 
sketch  of  him  into  one  of  his  books.  "  I  am," 
wrote  Davis,  "  but  one  of  many,  as  resolved  as  a 
river  is  to  descend,  to  lift  the  English  rule  from  oif 
Ireland,  and  give  our  country  a  career  of  action 
and  thought.  For  this  purpose  much  action 
and  thought  through  a  series  of  years  must  be 
used  by  us.  Action,  even  in  a  military  sense,  is 
not  mere  cutting,  firing,  and  even  charging. 
Organisation,  education,  leadership,  obedience, 
union,  are  all  action  too — the  best  and  most 
mature  action  in  some  cases — in  ours,  I  think, 
for  instance.  There  is  as  much  action  in  the  depot 
as  in  the  service  companies,  as  any  soldier  can  tell 
you."  His  passion  for  education  led  him  to 
welcome  both  the  National  Schools  and  the 
Queen's  Colleges,  though  he  welcomed  them 
critically.  The  National  Schools,  he  said,  "  are 
very  good  as  far  as  they  go,  and  the  children  should 
be  sent  to  them ;  but  they  are  not  national, 
they  do  not  use  the  Irish  language,  nor  teach 
anything    peculiarly    Irish."      Consequently,    he 


228  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

advised  that  "  until  the  National  Schools  fall 
under  national  control,  the  people  must  take 
diligent  care  to  procure  books  on  the  history, 
men,  language,  music,  and  manners  of  Ireland 
for  their  children."  Had  Davis's  advice  been 
taken  by  the  people  of  Ireland,  these  schools 
might  have  become  an  enormous  blessing  to 
Ireland  instead  of,  as  they  have  been,  a  three- 
parts  curse.  His  attitude  on  the  Queen's  Colleges 
was  equally  sane.  He  saw  clearly  that  they  must 
be  modified  so  as  to  get  rid  of  the  objections  of 
the  Catholic  Bishops  to  them  that  they  were 
"  godless "  colleges.  But  he  strongly  differed 
from  the  uncompromising  attitude  of  John 
Mitchel,  who  tells  us  in  The  Last  Conquest  of 
Ireland  {Perhafs),  that  he  detested  the  Colleges 
as  much  as  the  Archbishop  of  Tuam,  but  for  a 
different  reason — not  that  they  were  "  godless," 
but  that  they  were  British.  Davis,  however,  saw 
that  it  would  be  possible  to  alter  the  constitution 
of  the  Colleges,  so  that  they  would  neither  be 
necessarily  "  godless  "  (in  the  Bishops'  meaning 
of  the  word)  nor  British.  The  prospect  of  a 
popular  university,  says  Duffy,  was  to  him  "  like 
the  unhoped-for  realisation  of  a  dream.  To 
educate  the  young  men  of  the  middle  class  and  of 
both  races,  and  to  educate  them  together,  that 
prejudice  and  bigotry  might  be  killed  in  the  end, 
was  one  of  the  projects  nearest  to  his  heart.  It 
would     strengthen    the    soul    of    Ireland    with 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  229 

knowledge,  he  said,  and  knit  the  creeds  in  liberal 
and  trusting  friendship.  He  threw  all  the  vigour 
of  his  nature  into  the  task  of  getting  this  measure 
unanimously  and  thankfully  accepted."  He  even 
prepared  a  petition  from  the  more  influential 
citizens  of  Dublin,  asking  for  amendments  in  the 
Bill  establishing  the  new  Colleges.  In  regard  to 
the  Queen's  Colleges,  as  in  regard  to  the  National 
Schools,  Davis's  attitude  was  surely  in  the  main 
right.  The  Irish  nation  might  in  both  cases 
have  done  much  more  than  it  did  to  get  control  of 
such  instruments  for  instructing  the  young  in 
the  broad  truths  which  underlie  Nationality  and 
the  life  of  a  free  people. 

Davis  believed  not  only  in  using  every  single 
educational  institution,  however  imperfect,  which 
the  British  Government  could  be  got  to  pay  for 
out  of  the  Irish  taxes,  but  in  doing  everything 
possible  to  put  knowledge  within  the  reach  of 
everybody  in  Ireland,  of  whatever  rank  or  age. 
"  Knowledge  and  organisation,"  he  wrote  in  an 
article  in  favour  of  Repeal  Reading  -  Rooms, 
"  must  set  Ireland  free  and  make  her  prosperous. 
If  the  people  be  not  wise  and  manageable,  they 
cannot  gain  liberty  but  by  accident,  nor  use  it 
to  their  service.  An  ignorant  and  turbulent 
race  may  break  away  from  provincialism,  but 
will  soon  relapse  beneath  a  cunning,  skilful,  and 
unscrupulous  neighbour.  England  is  the  one — 
Ireland  must  not  be  the  other.     If  she  is  to  be 


230  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

self-freed,  if  she  is  not  to  be  a  retaken  slave,  she 
must  acquire  all  the  faculties  possessed  by  her 
enemy,  without  the  vices  of  that  foe.  We  have 
to  defeat  an  old  and  compact  government.  We 
must  acquire  the  perfect  structure  of  a  nation. 
We  have  to  resist  genius,  skill,  and  immense 
resources ;  we  must  have  wisdom,  knowledge, 
and  ceaseless  industry."  Hence  it  was  the  duty 
of  Repealers  never  to  pause  in  their  labours  until 
there  was  "  a  reading-room  in  every  village."  In 
the  same  article  Davis  goes  on  to  remark  upon  the 
national  backwardness  in  literature  and  military 
knowledge,  and  on  the  general  industrial  ignor- 
ance which  is  "  the  leading  economical  difference 
between  England  and  Ireland " ;  and  he  then 
says :  "  We  are  not  afraid  of  all  those  things,  nor 
do  we  wish  to  mufHe  our  eyes  against  them. 
We  want  a  brave,  modest,  laborious,  and  instructed 
people.  It  is  deeper  pleasure  to  serve  and  glory 
to  lead  such  a  people.  It  is  a  still  deeper  pleasure 
and  honour  to  lead  a  race  full  of  virtue  and 
industry  and  a  thirst  for  knowledge.  But  for  a 
swaggering  people  who  shout  for  him  who  flatters 
them,  and  turn  from  those  who  would  lead  them 
by  plain,  manful  truth — who  shall  save  them  ?  " 
Davis,  it  will  be  seen,  was  neither  a  foolish 
optimist  nor  a  foolish  pessimist.  He  was  willing 
to  recognise  every  dismal  and  depressing  fact  in 
the  Ireland  of  his  day,  as  well  as  all  the  cheerful 
ones,  but  he  was  one  of  those  inspired  men  who 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  231 

know  that  the  human  soul  is  greater  than  a  world 
of  temporar}^  facts — that,  granted  a  sufficiency 
of  souls  inspired  hy  the  same  high  courage  as  he 
felt  in  his  own  breast,  nothing  could  withstand 
them.  Courage,  knowledge,  discipline — these 
were  the  three  main  lessons  which  he  taught  to 
his  fellow-countrj^men.  His  soldierly  instincts 
told  him  that  without  discipline  success  was 
impossible  in  anything. 

His  hatred  of  indiscipline  surpassed  that  of  any 
national  leader  we  have  ever  had.  He  saw  that 
noisy  indiscipline  was  one  of  the  vices  of  which 
as  a  nation  we  had  to  get  rid,  and  he  detested  it 
and  denounced  it  even  when  it  took  the  shape  of 
rowdiness  on  behalf  of  national  things.  It  was 
his  scorn  of  indiscipline  that  made  him  at  one 
period  call  to  order  those  "  scolding  mobs  " 
which  met  in  the  present  O'Connell  Street  in 
Dublin  every  evening  to  hoot  the  foreign-made 
mail  coaches  which  had  taken  the  place  of  the 
old  Irish-made  vehicles.  Davis  attacked  the 
giving  of  the  coach  contracts  out  of  Ireland,  but, 
when  once  the  mischief  was  done,  he  had  no 
patience  with  those  who  would  go  out  merely  to 
create  a  disturbance  without  the  least  hope  or 
idea  of  undoing  the  evil.  "  '  I  hate  little  wars,' 
said  Wellington,"  he  wrote  in  reference  to  these 
scolding  mobs.  "  So  do  we  ;  and  we  hate  still 
more  a  petty  mob  meeting  without  purpose,  and 
dispersing  without  success.     Perfect  order,  silence, 


232  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

obedience,  alacrity,  and  courage  make  an  as- 
semblage formidable  and  respectable.  We  want 
law  and  order — we  are  seriously  injured  hy  every 
scene  or  act  of  violence,  no  matter  how  transient. 
Let  us  have  no  more  of  this  humbug.  If  we  are 
determined  men  we  have  enough  to  learn  and 
to  do  without  wasting  our  time  in  hissing  and 
groaning  coaches." 

It  was  his  hatred  of  indiscipline — indiscipline  in 
the  form  of  carelessness  about  the  truth — which 
inspired  his  defence  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
against  the  belittlements  of  O'Connell.  "  In 
reference  to  popular  faults,"  he  wrote,  "  we 
cannot  help  saying  a  word  on  the  language  applied 
to  certain  of  the  enemy's  leaders,  especially  the 
Duke  of  Wellington.  We  dislike  the  whole 
system  of  false  disparagement.  The  Irish  people 
will  never  be  led  to  act  the  manly  part  which 
liberty  requires  of  them  by  being  told  that 
[the  Duke],  that  gallant  soldier  and  most  able 
general,  is  a  screaming  coward  and  doting  corporal. 
We  have  grave  and  solemn  work  to  do.  Making 
light  of  it  or  of  our  enemies  might  inspire  a 
moment's  overweening  confidence,  but  would 
ensure  ultimate  defeat.  We  have  much  to  con- 
tend against ;  but  our  resources  are  immense, 
and  nothing  but  our  own  rashness  or  cowardice 
can  defeat  us." 

Davis  could  hate  the  English  Government  of 
Ireland,  and  yet  give  credit  to  Englishmen  or 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  233 

Hiberno-Englishmen  for  such  virtues  as  they 
possessed.  He  always  made  it  clear  that  the 
quarrel  of  Irish  Nationalism  was  with  the  Eng- 
lish Empire,  not  with  the  English  people — with 
England  as  a  tyrant,  not  with  this  or  that  English 
person  as  a  human  being.  He  could  hate  wrong  : 
he  saw  too  deep  ever  to  hate  humanity.  That  is 
why  he  neither  underrated  the  English  nor  wished 
to  belong  to  their  Empire.  "  Is  Ireland  to  share 
in  the  criminal  profits  of  the  Empire  ?  "  he 
demanded.  "  Are  the  Irish  people  so  forgetful  of 
the  common  cause  which  binds  them  to  the 
Indian  and  American  as  to  give  their  flexible 
genius,  their  valour,  and  their  passions,  to 
holding  down  the  subject  races — regardless  too 
of  the  crimes  against  themselves  of  the  partner  of 
such  a  career  ?  We  repeat,  again  and  again,  we 
have  no  malice  against — no  hatred  of  the  English. 
For  much  that  England  did  in  literature,  politics, 
and  war,  we  are,  as  men,  grateful.  Her  op- 
pressions we  would  not  even  avenge.  We  would, 
were  she  eternally  dethroned  from  over  us, 
rejoice  in  her  prosperity  ;  but  we  cannot,  and 
will  not,  try  to  forget  her  long,  cursing,  merciless 
tyranny  to  Ireland  ;  and  we  do  not  desire  to 
share  her  gains,  her  responsibility,  or  her  glories." 
We  find  the  same  clear  refusal  to  be  either  pro- 
Imperial  or  anti-English  in  another  passage  of 
his  writings  which  runs  :  "  It  is  not  a  gambling 
fortune  made  at  imperial  play   Ireland  wants  : 


234  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

it  is  the  pious  and  stern  cultivation  of  her  faculties 
and  virtues,  the  acquisition  of  faithful  and 
exact  habits,  and  the  self-respect  that  rewards 
a  dutiful  and  sincere  life.  To  get  her  peasants 
into  snug  homesteads  with  well-tilled  fields  and 
placid  hearths  ;  to  develop  the  ingenuity  of  the 
artists,  and  the  docile  industry  of  her  artisans  ; 
to  make  for  her  own  instruction  a  literature 
wherein  our  climate,  history,  and  passions  shall 
breathe ;  and  to  gain  conscious  strength  and 
integrity,  and  the  high  post  of  holy  freedom  : 
these  are  Ireland's  wants.  These  she  will  not 
sacrifice  to  pursue  the  chance  of  being  allowed  a 
third  or  half  even  of  the  offices,  profligacy,  and 
oppression  of  the  British  Empire.  Peace  with 
England — alliance  with  England — to  some  extent, 
and  under  certain  circumstances,  confederation 
with  England ;  but  an  Irish  ambition — Irish 
hopes,  strength,  virtues,  and  rewards  for  the 
Irish." 

To  Davis,  with  his  high  ideas  of  virtue  and 
discipline,  outrages  were  abhorrent  as  a  method 
of  attaining  one's  ends.  How  clean-handed  he 
would  always  have  kept  the  people  in  their 
struggle  for  their  rights  may  be  seen  in  his 
denunciation  of  the  Munster  agrarian  outrages. 
Davis  never  could  be  got  to  idealise  the  man  who 
shot  his  fellow-man — even  if  the  fellow-man  were 
a  landlord — as  a  national  hero.  It  is  one  thing 
to  acknowledge  that  agrarian  crime  is  often  the 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  235 

crime  of  a  brave  and  generous  man  who  has  been 
goaded  into  it  by  injustice  and  oppression.  It  is 
another  thing  to  argue  that  the  crime  is  really  a 
virtue  to  be  praised  and  imitated.  Davis  was  not 
the  man  to  go  murdering  landlords  or  bailiffs 
himself.  This  being  so,  he  would  not  advise  other 
people  to  do  it.  There  is,  of  course,  a  good  deal 
to  be  said  on  both  sides  in  regard  to  political 
crime.  I  doubt,  however,  if  the  national  soul 
of  Ireland  has  really  gained  from  all  the  long 
generations  of  political  crime  which  are  commonly 
supposed  to  have  disestablished  the  Episcopalian 
Church  and  brought  about  the  Land  Acts.  I 
do  not,  of  course,  include  an  incident  like  the 
Manchester  rescue  among  political  crimes  ;  the 
Phoenix  Park  murders,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the 
sort  of  crime  which  a  school  of  Nationalists 
educated  in  the  lofty  principles  of  Davis  could  only 
commit  if  they  were  driven  temporarily  mad. 

Crime  separates  men  and  makes  them  sus- 
picious of  each  other.  Virtue,  if  it  is  not  too 
much  mixed  with  self-righteousness,  unites  and 
conciliates.  Conciliation  itself  is  a  virtue,  as 
Davis  said,  and  not  always  the  easiest  to  practise. 
Longing  for  union  among  all  classes,  he  preached 
conciliation  as  "  a  fixed  and  everlasting  duty, 
independently  of  the  political  results  it  might 
have."  "  If  Irishmen  were  united,"  he  writes, 
*'  the  Repeal  of  the  Union  would  be  instantly  and 
quietly  granted."     So  conciliatory  was  Davis  that 


236  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Duffy  contends  that  "  he  set  an  undue  value  .  .  . 
on  mere  social  sympathy  and  the  dilettante 
nationality  which  grew  enthusiastic  over  the 
Cross  of  Cong  or  a  Jacobite  song  of  the  later  bards, 
but  was  indifferent  to  the  present  sufferings  and 
hopes  of  the  people."  Davis,  however,  realised 
that  it  is  often  on  the  dry-as-dust  industry  of 
these  antiquaries  that  the  truths  of  history  must 
be  built. 

This  is  not  meant  to  be  a  complete  and  balanced 
estimate  of  Davis.  It  is  only  a  scattered  reminder 
to  those  who  are  interested  in  Irish  Nationalism 
of  how  many-sided,  how  heroic,  how  unbending, 
was  Davis's  national  philosophy.  Davis  did  not 
believe  in  any  short  cut  to  Nationhood.  He  saw 
that  nations  were  built  from  within — that  they 
were  the  results  of  faith,  of  vision,  and  labour. 
He  had  an  enthusiastic  battlefield  imagination 
which  would  have  made  him  glad  to  die  fighting 
for  Ireland,  or  indeed,  as  one  of  his  songs  says, 
"  for  any  good  cause  at  all  "  ;  but  he  did  not 
love  fighting  for  fighting's  sake.  Righteousness 
and  liberty  were  his  passions.  He  was  not,  more- 
over, one  of  those  who  care  for  liberty  only  in 
their  own  country,  thus  making  Ireland  little 
better  than  a  province  or  a  parish.  His  belief 
in  liberty  was  of  a  religious  quality.  Therefore 
he  longed  for  its  coming  all  the  world  over.  His 
"  Ballad  of  Freedom  "  is  not  great  poetry,  but 
it  expresses  a  great  spirit  : — 


CORK  AND  MALLOW  237 

"  Russia  preys  on  Poland's  fields,  where  Sobieski  reigned ; 
And  Austria  on  Italy — the  Roman  eagle  chained — 
Bohemia,   Servia,   Hungary,  within  her  clutches  gasp ; 
And    Ireland    struggles    gallantly    in    England's    loosening 

grasp  ; 
Oh  !  would  all  these  their  strength  unite,  or  battle  on  alone, 
Like  Moor,  Pushtani,  and  Cherkess,  they  soon  would  have 

their  own. 
Hurrah  !    hurrah !    it  can't   be  far,  when   from   the   Scinde 

to   Shannon 
Shall  gleam  a  line  of  freemen's  flags  begirt  with  freemen's 
cannon  ! 
The    coming    day    of    Freedom — the    flashing    flags    of 
Freedom 
The  victor  glaive — 
The  mottoes  brave. 
May  we  be  there  to  read  them ! 
That  glorious  noon, 
God  send  it  soon — 
Hurrah  !   for  human  freedom  !  " 

Davis's  gospel — ^his  gospel  of  righteousness  and 
liberty — was  true  for  Ireland  because  it  was  true 
for  the  world. 


CHAPTER    IX 

CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS 

The  train  approached  Cashel  in  the  light  of  a 
misty  moon.  Suddenly,  as  we  looked  out  of  the 
window  over  the  monotonous  level  of  the  fields, 
a  miracle  happened  before  our  eyes,  and  a  castle 
in  elfland  rose  out  of  the  air.  It  silenced  one  like 
a  revelation  ;  it  was  as  though  we  had  burst  into 
a  new  world.  As  the  train  curved  round  into 
the  station,  we  were  like  passengers  on  a  ship 
arriving  in  harbour  in  some  country  of  the 
imagination.  Here,  after  long  expectation,  was 
the  Rock  of  Cashel,  the  most  memorable  height  in 
southern  Ireland — the  rock  upon  which  the  floods 
of  slaughter  and  foreign  war  broke  through  the 
centuries,  and  which  is  now  desolate  in  the  plain, 
a  rock  left  behind  by  the  tide. 

Cashel  is  still  a  retreat  of  that  spirit  of  lone- 
liness which  was  abroad  in  these  parts  of  Ireland 
in  the  devastating  days  of  Elizabeth,  when  the 
Four  Masters  wrote  that  "  the  lowing  of  a  cow  or 
the  voice  of  a  ploughman  could  scarcely  be  heard 
from  Dunqueen  in  the  west  of  Kerry  to  Cashel," 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  239 

Since  then,  the  cows  have  come  back  into  the 
fields,  though  the  ploughman  has  not.  But 
Cashel  still  seems  to  be  dazed  from  the  shock  of 
so  vast  a  silence. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday,  and  we  were  eager 
to  be  out  and  to  see  whether  there  was  any  reality 
in  the  vision  of  the  night  before.  I  had  got  it 
into  my  head  somehow  or  other  that  a  part  of 
the  ruin  on  the  rock  was  still,  in  the  beautiful 
everyday  phrase,  a  place  of  worship,  and  served 
as  a  Protestant  cathedral.  Consequently,  I  was 
looking  forward — resignedly,  perhaps,  rather  than 
hopefully — to  spending  my  morning  on  the  rock 
like  an  orthodox  churchman.  When  I  went  into 
the  low  breakfast-room  in  the  hotel,  decorated  as 
nearly  all  such  rooms  are  with  photographs  of 
the  proprietor's  relatives  and  with  cheap  repro- 
ductions of  meaningless  landscape  paintings,  I 
found  an  old  white-bearded  gentleman  who 
looked  like  a  Hebrew  prophet  at  the  table,  and, 
supposing  him  to  be  still  more  of  an  orthodox 
churchman  than  myself,  I  asked  him  at  what 
time  the  service  in  the  Cathedral  began. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said — a  little  shortly,  I 
thought — as  he  lowered  his  beard  towards  his 
egg.  He  filled  his  mouth  with  egg,  and  wiped  a 
corner  of  his  moustache  suddenly  with  his  napkin. 
"  I  don't  know  anything  about  it,"  he  repeated. 

"  I  must  ask  the  girl  when  she  comes  up,"  I 
said. 


240  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

He  wiped  his  mouth  again. 

"  I  have  no  interest  in  any  of  the  churches,"  he 
declared,  looking  straight  before  him,  "  Catholic 
or  Protestant.  I  haven't  been  inside  a  church  at 
service-time  for  between  fifty  and  sixty  years, 
and  I  don't  expect  ever  to  be  in  one  again." 

That  sounded  uncompromising.  He  looked 
more  and  more  like  a  Hebrew  prophet  as  he 
warmed  to  his  speech.  Narrow-eyed,  Roman- 
nosed,  with  bushy  white  eyebrows,  he  had  a 
lean  old  face  not  unlike  General  Booth's.  He 
had  not  General  Booth's  inches,  however  ;  he 
was  a  small  man. 

"  No,"  he  continued,  a  steely  look  in  his  eyes  ; 
"  I  was  brought  up  in  a  strict  Methodist  house, 
where  we  were  taught  that  God  would  send  us  to 
hell  if  we  went  for  a  walk  through  the  fields  on  a 
Sunday,  and  that  our  Roman  Catholic  neighbours 
were  so  infernally  wicked  that  He  would  send  them 
to  hell  whether  they  went  walking  in  the  fields 
on  Sunday  or  not.  That's  the  kind  of  house  I 
grew  up  in.  It  was  all  punishment,  punishment, 
punishment.  God  was  the  great  punisher.  Ac- 
cording to  the  Bible,  God  was  love,  but  there  was 
nothing  to  show  it.  It  was  worse  than  being  in  a 
reformatory.  At  last  I  could  endure  it  no  longer. 
I  ran  away.  I  was  a  boy  of  seventeen  then.  I 
got  as  far  as  Queenstown,  and  there  I  hid  myself 
away  in  a  boat  for  America,  and  didn't  show  my 
nose  on  deck  till  we  were  a  good  many  miles  out 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  241 

in  the  Atlantic.  And  when  I  landed  in  New 
York,  do  you  know  what  I  did  ?  I  just  got  into 
the  country  and  walked  right  ahead  for  five  days. 
I  had  no  money,  but  I  felt  so  free  that  every  step 
I  took  seemed  like  dancing.  It  was  the  first  time 
I  had  ever  known  what  happiness  was.  I  could 
have  gone  on  for  ever.  Those  were  the  happiest 
days  of  my  life.     At  last  I  got  some  work  to  do  on 

a  farm  near  a  place  called ,  and  after  that  I 

got  a  post  in  a  school.  And  I've  never  regretted 
it.  I  can  worship  God  still,  but  not  in  a  church. 
There's  more  religion  to  me,"  he  said  pugnaciously, 
"  in  a  cow  chewing  her  cud  in  a  field  than  in 
all  the  churches  of  Ireland.  But  there  " — and  he 
raised  his  hand  deprecatingly — "  every  man  has 
a  right  to  his  opinion,  and,  if  anybody  feels  the 
better  of  an  hour  spent  in  church,  I'd  be 
sorry  to  interfere  with  him.  But  I'm  blowed  if 
I'll  go  myself  " — and  he  laughed  cunningly  into  his 
napkin — "  unless  they  drag  me  there  in  a  coffin 
after  I'm  dead.  And  that  will  be  against  my 
will." 

I  told  him  I  thought  he  would  find  less  severity 
among  Irish  Protestants  than  he  used  to  do. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said,  unwilling  to  give  them 
any   virtues.     "  I    think   they're   just   as   bad   as 

ever.     I  spent  my  holiday  two  years  ago  in  , 

in  the  County  Cork,  and  one  day,  when  I  was  out 
painting  in  a  field,  a  parson  comes  up  to  me  and 
says,  '  Have  you  been  here  long  ?  I  didn't  see 
16 


242  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

you  at  church  on  Sunday,  did  I  ?  '  '  No,'  said 
I,  '  I'm  too  old,  far  too  old,  for  that  sort  of  thing.' 
Fancy  that  now  !  Just  because  he  was  a  parson, 
he  actually  thought  he  had  the  right  to  question 
me  about  my  movements  and  to  interfere  with 
the  way  I  wanted  to  spend  my  Sunday.  They're 
just  a  lot  of  officious  bigots — that's  what  the  clergy 
are  so  far  as  I  have  met  them.  I  don't  like  the 
breed." 

I  expressed  surprise  that  he  should  have  come 
back  to  a  country  with  which  he  had  so  many 
unpleasant  associations. 

"  You  might  think  so,"  he  admitted.  "  It  may 
be  partly  that  the  country  has  a  tug  on  any  one 
who  was  born  in  it.  And  then,  I'm  a  painter. 
If  you  were  a  painter — and  you  may  be  for  all 
that  I  know — you  would  never  wonder  what 
brings  any  one  back  to  Ireland.  The  clouds — 
perhaps  you  hate  clouds  and  rain,  but  they're 
meat  and  drink  to  me.  Every  alternate  year 
I  come  over  and  hide  myself  in  some  quiet  part  of 
Ireland,  like  Cashel,  for  the  summer,  and  it's  my 
notion  of  a  well-spent  day  to  get  away  out  after 
breakfast  with  my  stool  and  paint-box  and  to 
forget  myself  among  birds — you  have  birds  in 
Ireland — and  clouds  and  flowers  till  I  can't  see 
to  paint  any  more.  I'm  an  old  man,  as  old  as  I 
look,  and  my  beard's  white,  as  you  see,  and  I'm 
rheumatic  and  dyspeptic  and  all  sorts  of  things — 
I've  had  a  feeling  of  a  red-hot  poker  in  my  chest 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  243 

since  I  overate  last  night  of  that  soda-bread  on 
the  plate  in  front  of  you — but  I  forget  all  that 
when  I  get  out  into  the  Irish  light.  But,  if  you 
listen  any  more,  you'll  be  late  for  the  Cathedral. 
Well,  I'll  go  and  see  about  my  box,  and  try  to  lose 
myself  out  in  the  country  ;  and  I  hope  you'll 
enjoy  your  service  as  much  as  I  will  mine." 

After  listening  to  the  old  gentleman,  I  felt 
rather  as  if  I  had  had  the  sermon  already.  And 
indeed  it  was  not  in  our  destiny  to  hear  any  other 
sermon  that  day.  We  learned  from  the  maid  that 
the  Cathedral  had  no  connection  whatever  with 
the  rock,  and  that  the  rock  was  ancient  ruins 
and  nothing  else,  and  no  holy  songs  rising  from  it 
any  more.  So,  as  there  was  no  service  on  the 
rock,  we  had  no  service  at  all. 

The  Rock  of  Cashel  is  one  of  the  most  un- 
expected things  in  Ireland.  There  is  no  excuse 
for  this  wonderful  pile  rising  out  of  such  a 
poor  little  town  as  Cashel,  and  there  is  no  logic 
in  the  appearance  of  three  hundred  feet  of  rock 
in  the  middle  of  an  immense  flat  plain.  Naturally 
there  is  a  reason  in  folklore  for  it.  The  devil, 
who  has  had  so  widespread  an  influence  on  the 
geography  of  Christian  countries,  was  one  day 
pursuing  an  enemy  across  the  County  Tipperary, 
when,  feeling  hungry,  he  took  a  great  bite  out  of 
the  hills  to  the  north  of  Cashel.  But,  feeling  even 
more  angry  than  hungry,  instead  of  swallowing 
it,  he  spat  the  piece  out  after  the  runaway,  and 


244  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

it  still  lies  where  it  fell,  the  world-famous  Rock  of 
Cashel.  Standing  on  the  rock,  you  can  still  see 
the  mighty  tooth-notches  in  the  hills,  and  there 
is  no  better  known  landmark  than  the  Devil's 
Bit  in  the  County  Tipperary.  However  the  huge 
crag  may  have  come  there,  it  must  have  suggested 
itself  as  a  suitable  place  to  fortify  as  soon  as  man 
had  escaped  from  the  Golden  Age  into  militarism. 
It  is  said  that  a  King  of  Munster  was  led  by  the 
dream  of  two  swine-herds,  who  saw  an  angel 
blessing  the  rock,  to  build  a  fort  on  it  in  the  fifth 
century  ;  but  the  dream  seems  unnecessary.  In 
any  case,  there  was  apparently  some  kind  of  royal 
residence  on  the  spot  by  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century,  when  St.  Patrick  arrived  there  in  the 
course  of  his  extraordinary  bloodless  mission 
through  Ireland.  It  was  here  that  St.  Patrick 
converted  King  Angus,  and  it  is  in  his  sermon  to 
the  King  and  his  people  that  he  is  said  to  have 
chosen  the  three-leaved  shamrock  as  a  symbol  of 
the  Trinity.  His  conversion  and  baptism  of  the 
King  are  also  memorable  as  having  given  an 
occasion  for  a  fine  act  of  stoical  endurance  on  the 
part  of  the  new  convert.  During  the  baptismal 
ceremony,  Patrick  struck  his  crozier  into  the 
ground,  not  seeing  that,  in  doing  so,  he  was 
impaling  the  King's  foot.  The  King  said  nothing, 
and  the  ceremony  went  on  till  the  end,  when 
Patrick  saw  blood  flowing  on  the  ground  and 
realised  what  he  had  done.     Questioned  as  to  his 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  245 

reason  for  not  speaking  about  the  accident,  the 
King  innocently  declared  that  he  had  thought 
it  was  part  of  the  ceremony,  symbolic  of  the 
sufferings  of  the  Cross.  This  crozier  of  the  saint, 
by  the  way,  was  reputed  to  be  a  staff  that  had  once 
belonged  to  Jesus,  and  Pope  Celestine  had  given 
it  to  Patrick  to  support  him  in  his  mission  in 
Ireland.  Naturally,  so  popish  a  relic  stood  a 
poor  chance  amid  the  futurism  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, when  it  was  destroyed — one  hopes  not  out 
of  malice. 

Even  to-day  the  Rock  of  Cashel  is  inhabited  by 
the  visible  memories  of  all  these  things.  As  soon 
as  the  Board  of  Works  caretaker  unlocks  the  gate 
for  you,  and  you  go  inside  the  walls,  you  see  an  old 
weather-worn  cross  standing  on  an  old  weather- 
worn stone.  On  one  side  of  the  cross  is  an  epis- 
copal figure,  said  to  be  St.  Patrick  himself,  and 
on  the  other  is  a  crucified  Christ  fully  clothed, 
as  one  is  told  was  the  rule  in  early  carvings.  It 
was  on  the  stone  which  is  now  the  pedestal  of 
the  cross  that  Angus  and  the  Kings  of  Munster 
of  his  time  were  crowned.  Possibly,  the  great 
slab  that  lies  on  the  ground  beside  it  also  links  us 
with  very  ancient  times  :  it  is  said  to  have  been 
a  Druid  altar. 

But  the  glory  of  Cashel  does  not  consist  in  its 
associations  with  the  Druids  or  with  St.  Patrick  or 
with  stoical  kings.  One  thinks  of  it  with  especial 
affection  because  it  is   one  of  the  undestroyed 


246  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

monuments  of  the  civilisation  that  was  taking 
shape  in  Ireland  before  the  Norman  invasion. 
In  another  hundred  years  —  perhaps  even  in 
another  fifty  years — there  will  be  no  need  to 
emphasise  the  fact  that  Irish  civilisation  was  a 
real  and  living  thing  before  ever  a  Norman,  or 
whatever  you  like  to  call  him,  set  foot  in  it.  It 
is  still  necessary,  however,  to  remind  ordinary 
readers  that  pre-Norman  Ireland  possessed  a 
literature,  an  ecclesiastical  art,  and  a  culture 
which  gave  her  a  far  from  despicable  place  among 
the  nations  of  the  time.  Here  on  the  Rock  of 
Cashel  a  heap  of  buildings  bears  witness  to  the 
reality  of  that  civilisation.  The  high-pointed  stone 
roof  of  Cormac's  Chapel,  raising  its  little  towers  so 
sturdily  by  the  side  of  the  central  mass  of  the 
buildings,  may  not  strike  you  as  beautiful — I  for 
one  should  not  dream  of  calling  it  so — but  it  is 
at  least  the  covering  of  a  strong  and  faithful  piece 
of  work,  a  shrine  of  some  very  honest-eyed  art. 
It  used  to  be  thought  by  some  that  this  chapel 
was  built  in  the  time  of  Cormac  MacCuUinan, 
who  was  both  Bishop  of  Cashel  and  King  of 
Munster  at  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century — 
a  scholar  in  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew,  and  Danish  as 
well  as  in  Irish,  whose  famous  "  Glossary  "  is  said 
to  be  "  by  far  the  oldest  attempt  at  a  comparative 
vernacular  dictionary  made  in  any  language  of 
modern  Europe."  It  seems  to  be  generally 
agreed  nowadays,  however,  that  the  Cormac  of 


[Lajcrem'f. 


CORMAC'S   CHAPKL,    CASHKL. 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  247 

Cormac's  Chapel  was  a  King-Bishop  of  about  two 
hundred  years  later,  and  that  the  chapel  was  built 
within  the  half  century  before  the  arrival  of  the 
Normans.  The  inside  of  the  building,  which  is 
as  solid  as  a  gaol,  gives  one  a  greater  impression 
of  fancy  and  life  than  the  sharp  angle  of  the  stone 
roof.  Here,  as  soon  as  one  has  passed  the  many- 
arched  doorway,  one  is  in  a  shrine  of  humour 
as  well  as  religion.  Obviously,  the  ornamentation 
of  the  church  was  the  work  of  holy  men  with  a 
sense  of  fun.  Everywhere  that  it  was  possible  to 
stick  in  a  human  head  as  an  ornament,  a  monk's 
face  grins  or  prays,  and  one  feels  that  one  has  here 
from  the  hand  of  an  artist  of  kindly  and  satiric 
genius  a  gallery  of  portraits  of  the  sweet-hearted 
and  naughty  men — for,  clearly,  there  were  both 
sorts — who  fed  and  feasted  and  prayed  against 
the  world's  sins  on  the  rock  eight  hundred  years 
ago. 

Delightful  a  niche  of  the  past  as  Cormac's 
Chapel  is,  hdvv"ever,^with  its  traceries  and  carvings 
of  animals  and  men,  and  its  suggestions  of  walls 
once  a  wealth  of  colour,  one  has  to  go  on  into 
the  main  mass  of  the  buildings  in  order  to  find 
the  magic  and  essence  of  Cashel.  The  great  rock 
cathedral  is  now  roofless — it  was  unroofed  in  the 
eighteenth  century  by  the  soldiers  at  the  bidding 
of  Archbishop  Price,  who  was  tired  of  holding 
services  in  so  incommodious  a  place — but  it  is 
still    the    most    impressive    church    building    in 


248  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

which  I  have  ever  been.  From  the  outside, 
its  rubble  ruins  of  walls  give  an  impression 
of  towering  largeness  rather  than  loveliness  as 
they  crown  the  promontory  of  the  rock  ;  but, 
as  soon  as  you  stand  under  the  great  central  arch 
of  the  old  cathedral — an  arch  of  extraordinary 
beauty — and  submit  yourself  to  the  influences  of 
the  grey  stones  around  you,  you  begin  to  enter 
into  a  field  of  thrilling  experiences.  I  cannot 
exactly  define  the  nature  of  those  experiences ; 
but  I  will  put  the  matter  this  way.  I  believe 
that  if  an  imaginative  man  wished  to  write  a 
novel  about  early  or  late  medieval  Ireland,  he 
could  not  do  better  than  go  to  Cashel  and  haunt 
the  ruin  on  the  rock  and  become  haunted  by  it. 
It  is  bound  to  affect  a  sensitive  imagination,  as 
St.  Mary  Redcliffe  in  Bristol  affected  Chatterton. 
I  do  not  know  if  ghosts  walk,  but  this  rock  with 
its  cathedral  aisles  open  to  the  sky  is  surely  a 
meeting-place  of  the  shadows  of  kings  and  monks 
and  a  great  throng  of  feasters  and  fighters. 
Presences,  taller  and  more  majestic  than  life,  still 
seem  to  move  through  the  quiet  air.  The  walls 
are  burrowed  with  secret  stairways  and  passages, 
and  little  children  come  out  of  these  and  cry  out 
little  boasts  over  dangerous  heights  ;  but  one 
can  fancy  that  this  is  but  an  accidental  sign  of 
life — that  the  real  intense  life  of  the  place  is  going 
on  imperceptible  to  the  ear  or  the  eye.  Climbing 
to  a  grassy  square  over  the  doorway  of  the  church, 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  249 

and  looking  out  over  the  plain,  one  can  easily 
fill  the  green  miles  with  the  conquering  music  of 
the  old  armies  of  Munster  as  they  swung  home, 
gallant  as  young  hurlers,  from  grips  with  the 
Danes. 

Cashel  of  the  Kings  the  town  is  called  ;  and 
Brian  Boru  built  a  royal  house  on  the  rock,  and 
there  he  seems  to  have  married,  or  at  least  to 
have  made  a  mistress  of  Gormlaith — Gormlaith, 
the  stirrer-up  of  strife,  whose  greed  of  husbands 
is  condemned  by  the  Four  Masters  in  the  words — 

"  Gormlaith  took  three  leaps, 
Which  no  woman  shall  take  to  the  Day  of  Judgment : 
A  leap  at  Dublin,  a  leap  at  Tara, 
A  leap  at  Cashel  of  the  goblets  higher  than  both." 

It  was  Brian's  descendant,  Donal,  who  is  said 
to  have  built  the  great  Cathedral  on  the  rock, 
squeezing  it  into  the  space  that  was  left  between 
Cormac's  Chapel  and  the  round  tower  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  royal  house  and  the  edge  of  the 
rock  on  the  other.  If  so,  it  is  only  another  proof 
that  Ireland,  between  the  defeat  of  the  Danes  and 
the  coming  of  the  Normans,  was  a  country  of 
revival  rather  than  a  country  of  recession,  as  it  is 
usually  described. 

Henry  11.,  when  he  came  to  Ireland  in  1 1 72, 
appreciated  the  significance  of  the  rock — which  in 
regard  to  royalty  was  a  southern  Tara,  and  in 
regard  to  the  Church  was  a  southern  Armagh — 


250  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

and  it  was  there  that  he  called  together  the  Synod 
of  Cashel  in  order  to  make  the  Irish  clergy  good 
Catholics,  as  the  Pope  had  enjoined  upon  himwhen 
giving  him  possession  of  the  island.  This  again 
was  the  place  where  Edward  Bruce  chose  to  hold 
his  Parliament  when  he  became  for  a  brief  interval 
King  of  Ireland.  Cashel,  indeed,  may  be  de- 
scribed as  the  Acropolis  of  Munster.  For  hun- 
dreds of  years  it  was  at  once  a  summons  and  a 
challenge  in  the  political  and  religious  world. 
Fire  and  sword  swept  round  about  it  again  and 
again.  In  1494  the  Cathedral  itself  was  burnt 
by  Gerald,  the  great  Earl  of  Kildare.  This  is 
one  of  the  famous  incidents  in  the  history  of 
Cashel.  Gerald,  we  are  told,  was  summoned  to 
appear  before  King  Henry  vii.  and  explain  his 
conduct,  the  Archbishop  of  Cashel  being  present 
to  accuse  him.  The  Earl  did  not  deny  having 
committed  the  sacrilege,  but  defended  himself 
on  the  ground  that  he  never  would  have  burned 
the  Cathedral  unless  he  had  thought  that  the 
Archbishop  was  inside  it.  This  answer,  it  is  said, 
greatly  tickled  the  King.  It  is  an  example  of 
Irish,  or  Anglo-Irish,  humour,  one  would  think, 
that  might  have  tickled  anybody — even  the 
Archbishop.  Unfortunately,  the  anti-Irish  his- 
torians are  not,  in  the  vulgar  phrase,  out  for 
humour  but  for  scalps.  They  take  the  excellent 
Bernard  Shawism  of  the  Great  Earl  with  an 
almost  fanatical  seriousness,  and  ask  us  to  see  in 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  251 

it  yet  another  proof  of  the  cruelty  and  barbarism 
of  old  Irish  life. 

The  only  conspicuous  tomb  that  lies  out  of  the 
sun  in  the  church  wall  is  to  the  glory  of  another 
Archbishop  of  Cashel,  who  is  also  one  of  the  most 
famous  converts — or,  if  you  look  on  it  in  that  way, 
perverts — in  Irish  church  history.  This  was  the 
Archbishop  Miler  M'Grath  who,  having  been 
consecrated  by  the  Pope  in  Rome,  allowed  himself 
to  be  arrested  by  Queen  Elizabeth's  men  when  on 
his  way  to  Ireland,  and  was  soon  either  persuaded 
or  bribed  to  become  a  Protestant.  The  chapter 
in  which  O'SuUivan  Beare  tells  the  story  of  the 
Archbishop  in  his  History  of  Catholic  Ireland  is 
ingeniously  romantic.  Miler,  having  become  a 
Protestant  and  been  inducted  into  the  diocese  of 
Cashel,  straightway  set  out  to  prove  the  thorough- 
ness of  his  conversion  by  wedding  "  in  unholy 
union,"  as  the  historian  puts  it,  Anna  Ni  Meara. 
Having  married  her,  however,  he  found  to  his 
astonishment  that  she  would  not  eat  meat  on  a 
Friday.  "  Why  is  it,  wife,"  he  asked,  "  that  you 
will  not  eat  meat  with  me  ?  "  "  It  is,"  she 
replied,  "  because  I  do  not  wish  to  commit  a  sin 
with  you."  "  Surely,"  was  his  natural  retort, 
"  you  committed  a  far  greater  sin  in  coming  to 
the  bed  of  me,  a  friar  !  " 

On  another  occasion  he  found  her  weeping, 
and  asked  her  why.  "  Because,"  she  told  him, 
"  Eugene  "  (a  Franciscan  friar),  "  who  was  with  me 


252  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

to-day,  assured  me  by  strong  proof  and  many  holy 
testimonies  that  I  would  be  condemned  to  hell 
if  I  should  die  in  this  state  of  being  your  wife. 
I  am  frightened,  and  cannot  help  crying  lest  this 
be  true."  "  Indeed,"  replied  the  Archbishop — 
and  you  may  be  sure  her  complaints  iiad  exhausted 
the  last  ounce  of  his  patience — "  if  you  hope 
otherwise,  your  hope  will  lead  you  much  astray, 
and  not  for  the  possibility  but  for  the  reality  you 
should  fret." 

Not  long  after  this,  we  are  told  Anna  died 
consumed  with  grief.  But  the  Archbishop  had 
not  yet  been  cured  of  uxoriousness.  O'SuUivan 
Beare,  writing  a  few  years  afterwards,  told  the 
world,  as  Mr.  Matthew  Byrne  translates  him  in 
Ireland  under  Elizabeth :  "  The  wicked  Miler 
married  a  second  wife  and  now  lives  sinning,  not 
in  ignorance  but  wilfully.  He  does  not  " — and 
this  is  surely  a  very  fine  acquittal  on  one  score 
from  an  enemy — "  hunt  priests  nor  endeavour  to 
detach  Catholics  from  the  true  religion." 

How  admirably  this  tolerant  and  worldly  and 
amorous  friar  would  fit  into  the  portrait-gallery 
of  Anatole  France  !  It  is  to  be  feared  that  he 
did  little  service  to  the  cause  of  Protestantism  in 
Cashel,  for  a  report  written  by  two  Irish  Jesuits 
at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  James  declared 
that  at  that  time  "  in  the  metropolitan  city 
of  Cashel  .  .  .  there  was  one  solitary  English 
heretic,"  and  that,  "  fearing  to  be  well  scorched, 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  253 

he  made  himself  a  Catholic,  whereupon  the 
townsmen  burned  his  house,  so  that  even  a 
heretic's  house  should  not  remain  in  their  city." 

The  distrust  on  the  part  of  the  Cashel  people 
of  "  English  heretics  "  was  not  unjustified. 
Probably  they  cared  little  for  theology,  but  they 
cared  a  great  deal  about  being  conquered  and 
robbed  by  foreigners.  At  least,  so  far  as  one  can 
judge  from  the  general  record  of  Irish  tolerance 
in  the  matter  of  religion,  anything  that  Protestants 
have  ever  suffered  in  Ireland  has  been  suffered 
only  by  men  who  were  invaders  and  robbers  of 
the  people's  land.  Protestants  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  injured  because  they  were  Protestants. 
In  Cashel  especially,  the  greatest  record  of 
crime  must  be  assigned,  not  to  Irish  Catholics, 
but  to  government  troops.  The  sack  of  Cashel  on 
the  4th  of  September  1647,  by  Lord  Inchiquin's 
troops,  was  one  of  those  events  that  spread  horror 
through  Ireland.  Inchiquin  offered  to  let  the 
garrison  in  Cashel  march  out  with  all  the  honours 
of  war,  if  they  would  pay  him  ^3000  and  leave 
the  clergy  and  citizens  to  his  mercy.  They, 
naturally,  refused,  whereupon  Inchiquin's  men 
stormed  the  rock,  massacring  soldiers  and  priests, 
men  and  women,  till  the  place  flowed  with  blood. 
Inchiquin,  it  is  said,  having  made  his  way  into  the 
Cathedral  after  the  slaughter,  put  on  the  Arch- 
bishop's mitre  and  declared  gaily  that  he  was  now 
Governor  of  Munster  and  Archbishop  of  Cashel 


254  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

as  well.  As  an  epilogue  to  the  butchery,  the 
statues  and  crucifixes  were  broken  in  pieces  to 
make  a  soldiers'  holiday,  and  the  sacred  vestments 
used  as  horsecloths  or  worn  by  the  soldiers  in 
mockery.  The  vessels  of  the  altar  and  the  other 
spoils  were  sold  to  the  people  who  had  gathered 
in  from  surrounding  parts  "  as  if  to  a  fair." 

There  is  no  less  bloody-looking  place  in  the 
world  than  Cashel  now.  The  rock  has  long  since 
been  washed  of  its  stains,  and  the  town  which 
flows  up  to  it  is  much  too  poor  and  unawake  to 
tempt  even  a  Cossack  with  thoughts  of  plunder. 
Probably  there  was  stir  and  gaiety  in  it  till  the 
railways  came ;  it  lay  on  the  old  coach-road 
between  Dublin  and  Cork.  But  if  the  designers 
of  the  railway  system  had  purposely  set  out  to 
isolate  and  starve  the  towns  in  the  south  of 
Ireland,  such  as  Cashel,  they  could  scarcely  have 
succeeded  better  than  they  did.  Almost  every- 
where that  a  good  town  stood  they  avoided  like 
a  pestilence.  Thus  they  did  not  take  their  main 
line  round  by  Kilkenny,  and  they  ran  it  several 
miles  to  the  north  of  Cashel.  Cashel  has  never 
recovered  from  the  snub.  It  has  moped  and 
moulted  in  its  corner  ever  since.  It  still  possesses 
its  palace  upon  a  rock,  and  finds  it  a  useful  place 
to  send  the  children  to  play  on  Sunday  afternoons, 
and  a  convenient  place  to  bury  its  dead  by  the 
old  holy  well  out  of  which  one  is  now  forbidden  to 
drink.     At  the  same  time,  for  all  the  widow's 


CASHEL  OF  THE  KINGS  255 

weeds  in  which  it  has  clothed  itself,  it  retains 
memories  of  pride.  "  I  have  reared  twelve 
children  in  the  City  of  the  Kings,"  a  woman 
half  wailed,  half  boasted,  in  the  course  of  our 
visit,  as  she  stood  on  the  railway  platform,  and 
saw  the  train  go  off  with  a  load  of  emigrants, 
"  and  there's  the  last  of  them  gone  from  me." 
It  was  a  dirge  sung  over  a  royal  place.  "  There 
will  soon  be  no  Irish  left  at  home  at  all,"  she  cried. 
"  The  hedges  and  ditches  will  soon  be  emigrating 
ou-t  of  Ireland."  Certainly,  Cashel  is  a  deserted 
city.  But  the  rock  and  the  world  that  you  see 
from  the  rock — how  they  make  the  city  itself 
negligible  !  As  you  stand  under  the  central 
arches  of  the  Cathedral,  and  see  the  columns 
springing  up  to  meet  each  other  with  the  grace 
and  spontaneity  of  wild  daffodils,  you  enjoy  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  things  in  Ireland — one  of 
the  few  lyrics  in  stone,  indeed,  of  which  Ireland 
can  boast.  So  let  no  Irishman  miss  seeing  Cashel 
and  spending  a  long  day  in  the  clear  light  of 
the  ruined  Cathedral  on  the  Rock. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  MAN  FROM  THURLES 

I  MET  the  man  from  Thurles  in  Kilkenny  as  I 
was  going  up  to  the  station  from  the  Imperial 
Hotel. 

He  was  old  and  shuffling,  a  ragged  creature  that 
once  was  a  man  and  now  humped  from  town  to 
town  with  a  spotted  red  handkerchief  in  his  hand, 
gathering  the  needs  of  his  belly  from  among  those 
things  that  we  others  do  not  require  for  our  dogs. 
He  was  as  hairy  and  weather-beaten  as  a  sailor, 
but  he  was  like  a  squeezed  and  shrivelled  sailor. 
His  dark  hair  and  beard  were  as  limp  as  weed. 
His  eyes,  which  looked  like  the  eyes  of  a  blind 
man,  with  the  lids  falling  down  on  them  as  if  in 
deadly  weariness,  might  have  belonged  to  one 
who  had  been  captured  by  Algerian  pirates  in 
his  youth  and  who  had  lived  in  dungeons.  He 
was  wearing  a  tattered  wideawake,  a  symbol  of 
homelessness,  and  as  he  walked  he  seemed  to  put 
his  feet  down  with  uncertainty,  like  a  drunken 
man. 

I  stopped  him  to  ask  whether  a  church  set  up 

256 


THE  MAN  FROM  THURLES        257 

high  among  gravestones  by  the  side  of  the  road 
was  the  Black  Friary — I  think  that  was  the  name 
of  the  place. 

He  made  me  repeat  my  question,  and  then  in 
a  monotonous  voice  told  me — ^what  I  could  see 
for  myself — 'that  it  was  a  graveyard  in  there, 
mumbling  something  about  Protestants  and 
Catholics  both  being  buried  in  it — "  side  by  side," 
he  added  for  the  sake  of  euphony. 

Obviously,  he  had  not  heard  my  question  or 
did  not  know  the  answer  to  it.  But  that  did  not 
matter.  I  really  did  not  care  twopence  about 
the  Black  Friary. 

He  went  on  to  say  that  he  was  a  stranger  in 
Kilkenny,  and  (without  ever  raising  his  fly-blown 
eyes)  that  he  had  only  arrived  there  that  day  after 
a  walk  of  thirty  miles. 

I  asked  him  what  part  of  the  country  he  was 
from. 

"  Thurles,"  he  said,  his  voice  seeming  to  come 
from  a  fuller  chest,  as  he  gave  the  name  of  the 
town  its  two  syllables ;  "  did  you  ever  hear  tell 
of  Thurles  ?  " 

I  told  him  I  had  been  there  about  a  year  before. 

"  It  would  surprise  you,"  he  commented, 
"  the  difference  you  would  find  between  the 
people  of  Thurles  and  the  people  belonging  to 
Kilkenny." 

"  How  was  that  ?  "  I  asked  him. 

"  Well,"  he  replied,  "  in  Thurles,  and  indeed 
17 


258  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

I  might  say  in  all  parts  of  the  County  Tipperary, 
everybody  has  a  welcome  for  a  stranger.  For 
instance,"  and  he  pointed  a  hand  half-hidden 
under  a  long  sleeve  at  me,  "  you're  a  stranger, 
and  "  (touching  his  own  coat)  "  I'm  a  stranger, 
and  if  this  had  to  be  in  the  County  Tipperary, 
and  one  of  us  wanting  a  bed,  we  would  have  no 
trouble  in  the  world  but  to  go  up  to  the  door  of 
the  first  house,  and  there  would  be  as  big  a 
welcome  before  us  as  if  we  had  to  come  with  a 
purse  of  gold.  But  here,"  and  his  voice  grew 
bitter,  "  they  would  prosecute  you  if  you  would 
ask  them  for  as  much  as  a  sup  of  water," 

Suddenly  his  appearance  changed  ;  his  bold 
Jekyll  collapsed  into  a  whining  Hyde. 

"  Is  that  a  polisman  I  see  coming  ?  "  he 
asked,  laying  his  trembling  fingers  on  my  arm  and 
steadying  his  eyes  to  look  down  the  road.  "  If 
it's  a  polisman  he  is,  you  won't  let  him  come  in- 
terfering and  asking  me  questions.  You  wouldn't 
let  him  do  that,  sir.  But  in  the  name  of  Almighty 
God,"  he  demanded,  battering  himself  into  a 
kind  of  rhetorical  courage,  "  what  would  a  polis- 
man want  cross-examining  the  likes  of  me  ?  Did 
I  ever  steal  anything,  if  it  was  only  taking  a  turnip 
out  of  a  field  ?  Did  I  ever — tell  him  not  to 
interfere  with  me  !  "  he  quavered  ;  "  tell  him  not 
to  interfere  with  me  !  " 

I  should  not  have  been  surprised  if  he  had  put 
his  hand  into  mine  for  comfort  like  a  frightened 


THE  MAN  FROM  THURLES        259 

child.  He  held  in  his  breath  as  the  policeman, 
a  bold-boned  figure  in  dark  green,  trod  past. 
Then  he  let  his  breath  out  again. 

"  They're  tyrants,  them  fellows,"  he  said, 
"  and  the  lies  they  would  tell  on  a  poor  man 
might  be  the  means  of  getting  him  a  week  or 
maybe  a  month  in  gaol,  and  he  after  doing 
nothing  at  all  but  only  going  quietly  from  place 
to  place.  And  thieves  and  robbers  running  loose 
that  would  murder  you  on  the  roadside  and  no 
one  to  say  a  word." 

"  Do  you  mean  tinkers  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  do  not,  then,"  he  said.  "  I  mean  soldiers — 
milishymen." 

I  asked  him  to  come  into  a  public-house  for  a 
bottle  of  stout,  but  he  said  that  a  bottle  of  stout 
would  make  him  light  in  the  head.  At  length, 
however,  he  said  he  would  come  and  have  a  glass 
of  ale  if  I  was  sure  I  could  keep  the  police  from 
annoying  him.  I  gave  him  my  promise  and  we 
went  in. 

"  What  do  I  mean  ?  "  he  said,  when  I  brought 
him  back  to  the  militiamen.  "  This  is  what  I 
mean.  I  had  a  fine  blackthorn  stick  one  time," 
— he  called  it  a  "  shtick  " — "  a  stick  I  had  cut 
from  the  hedge  with  my  own  hands,  and  seasoned 
and  polished,  and  varnished  till  it  was  the  hand- 
somest stick  ever  you  seen.  Well,  I  was  walking 
along  the  road  in  this  part  of  the  country  one  day, 
when  who  should   meet   me  but   two   of    these 


26o  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

milishymen.  '  Give  us  baccy,'  says  one  of  them, 
— that's  what  he  called  tobacco.  '  I  have  no 
tobacco,'  says  I.  '  You  lie,'  says  he,  rising  his 
fist  to  threaten  me.  '  It's  the  truth,'  says  I, 
putting  up  my  arm  to  protect  myself." 

He   cowered    behind  his   arm,   and   shrank  as 
from  a  blow  at  the  recollection. 

"  *  If  you  haven't  tobacco,  you  have  money,' 
says  the  milishyman.  '  God  knows  I  have  neither 
money  nor  tobacco,'  says  I.  And  with  that  he 
made  a  rush  at  me  and  took  the  stick  off  me, 
and  threw  me  into  a  bed  of  nettles  and  began  to 
beat  me  with  it.  '  Would  you  have  my  murder 
on  your  souls  ? '  says  I ;  but  they  only  laughed  and 
began  searching  me  to  see  if  I  had  anything  worth 
stealing.  There  was  nothing  but  only  a  few  crusts 
of  bread  I  had  tied  up  in  a  handkerchief,  and  they 
took  them  out  and  pitched  them  over  the  hedge. 
They  would  have  murdered  me,  I  tell  you,  if 
they  hadn't  heard  somebody  coming.  But  that 
scared  them,  and  they  set  off  down  the  road. 
*  Won't  you  leave  me  my  stick  ? '  I  called  after 
them.  '  Don't  you  see  I  told  you  the  truth,  and 
what  use  could  a  rotten  ould  stick  be  to  the  likes 
of  you  ? '  And  one  of  them  shouted  back  that  I 
could  go  to  hell  for  my  stick,  and  he  threatened 
me,  if  I  was  to  say  a  word  about  it,  he  would  find 
me  out  and  beat  me  till  there  wouldn't  be  a  whole 
bone  left  in  my  body." 

The   old   man  half  lifted   the   glass  with   his 


1 


THE  MAN  FROM  THURLES        261 

withered  arm  to  his  lips,  and  half  stooped  his 
withered  face  to  the  glass.  Having  drunk,  he 
wiped  his  mouth  on  his  sleeve. 

"  Now  wouldn't  you  feel  lonesome,"  he  whim- 
pered, his  lips  against  his  sleeve,  "  after  a  stick 
that  you  had  cut  and  polished  yourself,  and  that 
you  had  been  used  to  have  with  you  wherever 
you  went  ?  And  many's  a  good  offer  I  had  to 
sell  that  stick.  But  I  would  as  soon  have  thought 
of  selling  an  arrum  or  a  leg.  I  wouldn't  " — he 
paused  and  his  imagination  took  a  leap  into  great 
sums — "  I  wouldn't  have  taken  a  shilling  itself 
for  it." 

To  him  a  shilling  was  something  considerable. 
It  represented  life  for  two  days ;  he  could  exist, 
he  told  me,  on  sixpence  a  day,  in  a  place  like 
Kilkenny.  Twopence  was  the  price  of  a  bed  in 
straw  on  the  floor,  where  the  rats  ran  across  you 
till  you  dreamed  you  had  fallen  in  the  middle  of 
a  fair  and  that  all  the  beasts  were  trampling  over 
you.  Then  in  the  morning  there  was  a  penny  for 
tea,  a  penny  for  a  slice  of  bacon,  a  penny  for 
bread,  a  halfpenny  for  sugar  and  a  drop  of  milk, 
and  a  halfpenny  for  the  loan  of  a  can  to  make  the 
tea  in  and  a  share  of  the  fire.  If  he  had  bed  and 
breakfast,  he  said,  he  did  not  mind  about  the  rest 
of  the  day.  He  never  felt  hungry,  as  long  as  he 
had  his  cup  of  tea  in  the  morning. 

Sunk  to  the  hovels  though  he  was,  he  had  the 
rags  of  a  finer  past  about  him.     He  used  to  be 


262  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAiND 

the  best  slaner,  he  assured  me,  in  the  north  of 
Tipperary.  Did  I  know  what  slaning  was  ?  It 
meant  cutting  turf,  and  he  used  to  be  so  good  a 
hand  at  it  that  he  could  earn  enough  by  two  or 
three  days'  work  to  keep  him  the  entire  week. 

"  There's  a  man  I  was  at  school  with  in  Thurles 
living  in  this  town,"  he  went  on,  adding  proof 
to  proof  of  his  original  respectability,  "  a  rich 
man,  and,  what's  more,  a  giving  man,  and  you'll 
think  it  a  queer  thing,  bat  I  have  only  to  walk  up 
to  his  door  and  ask  is  he  in  to  get  all  I  want  to 
eat  and  drink,  and  money,  too,  maybe  sixpence, 
into  my  hand,  and  I  going  away,  to  put  me  a  bit 
along  the  road.     But  I  wouldn't  go  near  him." 

"  Why  was  that  ?  "  I  asked  him. 

He  made  no  sign  of  having  heard  me. 

"  If  I  was  to  walk  up  to  his  door,  and  he  in  at 
his  dinner,"  he  went  on,  like  a  man  describing 
a  vision  of  Paradise,  "  he  would  bring  me  in  and 
sit  me  down  by  his  side  at  the  table,  and  I  tell 
you  it  would  be  a  table  for  a  feast.  There  would 
be  roast  beef,  or  mutton,  or  a  shoulder  of  lamb, 
or  maybe  a  chicken.  There  would  be  ham  and  " — 
his  imagination  seemed  to  pause  on  the  outer  edge 
of  its  resources — "  all  a  man  could  eat  and  he 
in  a  dream." 

"  And  why  do  you  not  go  to  him  ?  "  I  asked 
again. 

"  I  wouldn't,"  he  said  briefly ;  and  then,  re- 
turning to  his  vision,    "  every  sort  of    vegetable 


THE  MAN  FROM  THURLES        263 

there  would  be  on  the  table — potatoes,  and 
turnips," — ^he  went  over  their  names  in  a  slow 
catalogue,  dwelling  on  each  as  though  the  very 
words  had  magic  juices  for  an  empty  stomach, — 
"  and  carrots,  and  cabbage,  and  peas,  and  beans, 
and  parsnips,  and  curlies,  and — and  all.  I  tell  you 
none  of  the  hotels  in  this  city  could  do  you  better." 

"  But  why  don't  you  go  and  see  him  ?  "  I 
persisted. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  I  wouldn't,"  he  said  helplessly. 

There  was  something  puzzling  about  the  old 
man.  It  may  have  been  merely  his  timid  and 
indirect  spirit.  I  doubt  if  he  had  the  heart 
to  beg — at  least  openly — either  from  a  lifelong 
acquaintance  or  from  a  stranger.  He  was  going 
out  of  the  public-house  without  asking  me  for 
a  penny.  I  stopped  him,  however,  and  put  a 
sixpence  into  his  hand  to  see  him  over  the  night. 
He  peered  at  it  for  a  moment,  and  slowly  took 
his  hat  from  his  head.  Raising  his  sand-blind 
eyes,  he  let  them  dwell  on  me.  He  drew  in  a  long 
breath  as  though  about  to  deliver  an  oration. 
Then,  straightening  himself  into  a  kind  of  majesty, 
he  said  with  the  air  of  a  man  uttering  the  supreme 
benediction  :  "  You're  the  best  bloody  man  I've 
met  since  I  left  Thurles." 

And  having  paid  me  the  most  magnificent 
compliment  in  his  power,  he  put  on  his  hat, 
and  wobbled  in  front  of  me  out  of  the  bar. 


CHAPTER  XI 

DUBLIN 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  the  two  best- 
known  ports  of  entry  into  Ireland  should  be 
called  Kingstown  and  Queenstown.  Every  time  I 
land  at  Kingstown  for  Dublin  and  see  the  tall  pillar 
which  stands  there  in  memory  of  King  George  iv.'s 
tipsy  visit,  I  feel  an  ironical  satisfaction  that 
this  heavy  comedian  of  a  monarch  should  have 
been  chosen  as  the  symbol  of  English  rule  in 
Ireland.  He  came  to  Ireland  in  the  first  year  of 
his  reign  with  a  world  of  promise  in  his  eyes. 
The  Irish  Catholics,  many  of  whose  leaders  had 
been  cheated  into  supporting  the  Union  by  a 
promise  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  looked  to  him 
as  a  liberator,  and  he  smiled  and  smiled  and 
played  the  part  of  the  leader  of  the  Irish  race  at 
home  and  abroad  till  he  was  safely  out  of  the 
country.  It  was  at  Dunleary  on  the  south  side  of 
Dublin  Bay  that  he  embarked  for  England  again — 
Dunleary,  which  has  been  known  as  Kingstown 
ever  since  in  honour  of  the  event. 

O'Connell,  who  could   never   miss   an  oppor- 
264 


DUBLIN  265 

tunity  for  a  theatrical  turn,  followed  him  to  the 
edge  of  the  dock  with  a  laurel  crown,  and  men 
say  that  he  tumbled  into  the  water  as  he  made 
one  of  his  obeisances  of  premature  gratitude. 
But  I  do  not  believe  that,  though  O'Connell 
became  capable  of  anything  when  he  was  en- 
thusiastic. The  whole  affair  of  the  royal  reception 
disgusted  every  one  who  felt  that  slavery  of  the 
soul  was  a  greater  curse  than  being  without  a  vote. 
Byron,  who  was  a  good  enough  Home  Ruler  from 
the  first  to  denounce  the  Union  between  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  as  "  the  union  of  the  shark 
with  its  prey,"  sat  down  in  anger  and  wrote  "  The 
Irish  Avatar,"  berating  the  Irish  people  for  the 
way  in  which  so  many  of  them  had  grovelled  to 
"  the  fourth  of  the  fools  and  oppressors  called 
George,"  as  he  described  the  King  in  the  most 
famous  line  of  the  poem. 

Dublin,  a  city  set  upon  a  plain,  is  a  grave  and 
aristocratic  witness  to  what  Ireland  was  beginning 
to  do  for  herself  in  the  pre-Union  days.  I  say 
grave,  though  Dublin  has  been  credited  with 
almost  every  other  virtue  and  vice  but  gravity. 
She  is  popularly  thought  of  as  the  boon-com- 
panion among  cities.  She  is  supposed  by  many 
foreigners  who  enter  her  to  be  symbolised  by  the 
red-eyed  whimsical  old  man  who  sells  the  papers 
on  Kingstown  platform  as  you  step  off  the  boat  in 
the  morning.  "  Irish  Times  I  Christian  Herald  ! 
Winning  Post !  "  he  calls  monotonously  as  he  walks 


266  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

up  and  down  with  an  air  at  once  sheepish  and 
cunning ;  and  then  he  goes  on  to  some  other 
ridiculous  collocation  :  "  Ally  Slo-per  !  The  War- 
Cry  !  Ally  Slo-per !  Irish  Times !  Christian 
Herald!  Freeman'' s  Jour7ial!  The  Pink  't/7?/" 
He  does  not  care  so  long  as  he  makes  the  English 
visitors  turn  to  each  other  at  the  doors  of  the 
waiting  train,  and  say  after  him  as  if  repeating  a 
good  joke — which  they  had  travelled  hundreds  of 
miles  to  hear — "  Irish  Times  I  Christian  Herald  ! 
The  Fink  ''Un  !  D'you  hear  him?  Good  old 
Ireland  !  "  It  must  be  inspiriting  to  find  at  the 
outer  gate  of  a  strange  country  a  figure  who  is  a 
proof  that  all  your  preconceptions  about  the 
country  were  right.  In  a  land  of  jokes  to  be  met 
at  the  very  water's  edge  by  a  jocular  paper-seller 
is  to  have  adventured  not  in  vain. 

In  spite  of  King  George  iv.  and  jocular  paper- 
sellers,  however,  I  insist  that  Dublin  is  a  city  of 
grave  dignity.  It  is  a  national  capital,  a  place  of 
leisure  and  statues  and  wide  streets  and  squares, 
with  brick-faced  venerable  houses  which  in  the 
radiance  of  sunset  have  a  colour  at  times  as  beauti- 
ful as  old  wine.  As  one  walks  its  pavements,  one 
is  always,  as  it  were,  under  the  shadow  of  history 
as  of  some  high  wall.  Here  in  the  evening,  as 
one  passes  under  the  colonnade  of  the  Parliament 
House — now  the  Bank  of  Ireland — one  is  back 
in  the  sonorous  and  stately  eighteenth  century, 
with  its   fine  worldliness   and  its   fine   rebellion 


DUBLIN  267 

against  worldliness.  It  is  not  that  other  towns 
do  not  recall  the  eighteenth  century  as  weU  as 
Dublin.  But  Dublin,  unlike  other  towns,  seems 
to  have  settled  down  in  the  eighteenth  century 
and  to  have  gone  little  further  in  the  next  hundred 
years.  Dublin  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  more 
real  than  Dublin  of  any  generation  since. 

Not  that  even  Dublin  of  the  present  day  does 
not  impress  itself  on  the  imagination  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  in  one  respect  it  is  an  English  fort 
and  in  another  a  provincial  town  to  which  the 
number-one  touring  companies  take  the  musical 
comedies  from  London.  Notwithstanding  all  the 
soldiers  who  fill  O'Connell  Street  at  night  with 
their  red  tunics  and  the  London  plays  which  are 
so  enthusiastically  welcomed  in  the  theatres,  no 
intelligent  Englishman  can  feel  that  in  Dublin  he 
is  in  a  British  city.  An  English  lady  who  recently 
visited  it  for  the  first  time  told  me  that  on  going 
into  the  Shelburne  Hotel  she  quite  naturally 
found  herself  addressing  the  servants  in  French. 
Dublin,  too,  is  doing  nothing  to  minimise  the 
differences  between  herself  and  the  cities  beyond 
Ireland.  She  is  not  yet  an  Irish-speaking  city, 
but  she  at  least  tinily  foretells  the  day  when  she 
will  be,  by  writing  up  the  names  of  so  many  of 
her  streets  in  Irish  as  well  as  English.  The  hard- 
headed  do  not  like  this.  They  even  become  as  the 
turkey-cocks  now  and  then  as  they  look  up  and 
see  those  Gaelic  characters  insulting  the  twentieth- 


268  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

century  street  corners.  The  practical  man — "  a 
bore  in  blinkers,"  some  one  has  called  him — thinks 
that  few  greater  calamities  could  happen  than  that 
Ireland  should  become  interesting  to  Irish  men 
and  women  again.  He  believes  first  of  all  in  the 
living  he  himself  earns.  After  that,  his  Irish 
creed  may  be  summed  up  as  dullness  in  the 
country,  dullness  in  the  towns,  and  dullness  in 
the  schools.  He  has  been  supreme  in  Ireland  for 
a  good  many  years  now,  and,  God  knows,  besides 
driving  population  and  manners  and  laughter  and 
industry  out  of  the  country,  he  had  very  nearly 
succeeded  in  making  it  a  very  wild  of  dullness, 
from  Belfast  to  Cork,  from  Ireland's  Eye  to  the 
Aran  Islands.  Then  a  few  years  ago  a  handful  of 
sentimentalists  appeared  who  felt  that,  if  it 
profited  a  man  nothing  to  gain  the  whole  world 
and  lose  his  soul,  it  must  profit  a  nation  still  less 
to  lose  the  whole  world  and  its  soul  as  well.  .  .  . 

Irish  though  it  is  to-day,  it  is  by  no  means  as 
an  Irish  city  that  we  always  find  Dublin  standing 
out  in  history.  Dublin  was  Norse  and  Danish 
in  its  early  years.  Iseult,  as  students  know,  was  a 
Danish  king  of  Dublin's  daughter.  Having  de- 
feated the  Norsemen  in  Carlingford  Lough  in  a 
great  battle  for  the  rule  of  Ireland  in  the  middle 
of  the  ninth  century,  the  Danes  seized  the  fortress 
which  their  rivals  had  already  built  at  Dublin, 
and  founded  a  monarchy  there  with  Olaf  the 
White    as    king.     Dublin    remained    a    Danish 


DUBLIN  269 

capital  for  about  a  century  and  a  half  after  that, 
when  Brian  Boru  broke  the  power  of  the  foreigners 
for  ever  at  the  battle  of  Clontarf.  I  believe  there 
is  some  debate  about  the  site  of  the  battle  of 
Clontarf/  but  if  you  take  a  tram  along  the  north 
side  of  Dublin  Bay,  you  will  find  a  dreary  flat  of 
brick  dwellings  by  the  sea  with  the  name  of 
Clontarf  ennobling  it.  It  was  on  Good  Friday, 
1014,  that  the  aged  Brian,  directing  the  battle 
from  his  tent,  and  praying  to  the  God  of  the 
Christians  for  the  victory,  drove  the  heathen 
stranger  into  the  tides.  Thus  in  191 4  it  will  be 
exactly  nine  hundred  years  since  the  greatest 
national  victory  in  the  history  of  Ireland  took 
place.  In  1 914,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  a 
measure  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland  will,  if  some 
accident  does  not  happen,  be  sent  up  to  the 
British  House  of  Lords  for  the  third  time  and 
automatically  become  law.  It  is  surely  a  note- 
worthy achievement  on  the  part  of  the  Irish 
people  to  have  come  through  those  nine  hundred 
years  of  turmoil,  persecution,  and  defeat,  with 
their  purpose  of  liberty  still  unextinguished. 

1  "  The  battleground  extended  from  about  the  present  Upper 
Sackville  Street  to  the  Tolka  and  beyond — along  the  shore  towards 
Clontarf.  The  Danes  stood  with  their  backs  to  the  sea  ;  the  Irish 
on  the  land  side  facing  them.  Malachi  and  his  Meathmen  stood  at 
the  Irish  extreme  right,  on  the  high  ground  probably  somewhere  about 
Blessington  Street.  The  hardest  fighting  appears  to  have  taken  place 
roMnd  the  fishing-weir  on  the  Tolka,  at,  or  perhaps  a  little  above,  the 
present  Ballybough  Bridge  ;  and  indeed  the  battle  is  called  in  some  old 
Irish  authorities,  'the  Battle  of  the  Weir  of  Clontarf.'" — Dr.  P.  W. 
Joyce's  Short  History  of  Ireland  to  1608,  p.  217. 


270  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

One  finds  a  memorial  of  the  old  Danish  Dublin 
in  Christchurch  Cathedral  on  the  south  side  of 
the  river.  Here  the  Danes  who  survived  Clontarf, 
having  become  converted  to  the  victorious  re- 
ligion of  Christ,  bailt  the  Church  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity,  and,  rightly  or  wrongly,  tradition  assigns 
the  crypt  of  the  present  building  to  the  original 
church.  One  visits  the  church  nowadays,  however, 
less  for  the  sake  of  the  Danes  than  to  see  the  tomb 
of  Strongbow,  pioneer  of  English  decivilisation 
in  Ireland.  An  old  man  shows  you  round  the 
mysteries  of  the  place.  He  shows  you  Strongbow 
in  stone  in  knightly  armour  and  with  a  shield  on 
his  left  arm,  and,  beside  him,  the  body  of  his  son 
cut  off  at  the  middle — the  son  whom  he  slew  for 
cowardice  in  battle.  He  shows  you  a  fragment 
of  Eva,  Strongbow's  wife.  For  sixpence  a  head, 
he  takes  you  down  into  the  crypt,  where  the 
electric  light  sheds  its  baleful  glare  along  the 
forest-like  vistas  of  the  arches,  and  shows  you  a 
mummified  cat  chasing  a  lost  rat  trapped  in  a 
living  tomb  and  preserved  behind  the  organ-case, 
and  only  discovered  many  years  afterwards,  a 
death's  comedy  for  the  amusement  of  sightseers. 
He  shows  you — and  this  is  his  special  pride — the 
bust  of  a  philanthropist's  orphan,  set  in  a  niche, 
and,  lighting  a  match,  insists  upon  your  taking 
a  close  look  and  seeing  a  tear  making  its  way 
down  the  orphan's  face.  What  are  the  Danes  to 
him  ?     How  does  Strongbow  come  home  to  his 


DUBLIN  271 

business  and  bosom  ?  The  tear,  on  the  other 
hand,  like  the  mummified  cat,  is  a  miracle  for 
simple  eyes.  "  Do  you  see  it  ?  Do  you  see  it  ?  " 
he  asks  eagerly  as  he  holds  up  the  match  to  the 
bust.  He  would  not  feel  that  he  had  given  you 
your  sixpence-worth  unless  he  showed  you  that 
orphan's  tear — that  and  the  dead  cat. 

I  do  not  know  if  any  one  calls  the  discoloured 
Gothic  cluster  of  Christchurch  beautiful.  I 
imagine  not — at  least  on  the  outside.  And,  if 
you  want  to  think  it  beautiful  inside,  you  must  go 
there  when  no  service  is  in  progress.  If  you  go 
there  at  the  time  of  a  service,  you  will  be  struck 
by  the  extreme  nakedness  of  Irish  Protestantism. 
Irish  Protestants  have  felt  it  so  urgent  a  matter 
to  disown  the  Pope  that  they  have  disowned  a 
good  deal  of  beauty — which  is  no  more  the  Pope's 
than  anybody  else's  —  as  well.  Consequently, 
though  in  occupation  of  elaborate  cathedral 
churches,  they  fill  them  with  no  elaborate  ritual. 
Here  no  candle  burns  its  little  Popish  flame  ;  and 
this  is  symbolic  of  the  way  in  which  the  whole 
service  seems  to  be  trying  to  avoid  the  very 
appearance  of  Popery,  instead  of  following  along 
beautiful  and  fitting  lines  on  the  merits  of  the 
case.  ...  I  do  not  know,  however ;  I  am  a 
Protestant  of  Protestants  myself,  and  suspicious 
of  any  but  simple  services.  Probably,  the  real 
flaw  in  Irish  Protestantism  has  little  to  do  with 
its    ornaments    or    want    of    them.     It    is    that 


272  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Protestantism  has  existed  in  Ireland  too  much 
as  a  negation.  It  has  been  a  negation  of  the 
Pope,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Ireland,  on  the 
other.  It  has  stood  for  contempt  and  ascendancy, 
not  for  brotherhood.  Though  it  has  produced  its 
saints  in  thousands,  it  has  never  stood  for  saintli- 
ness,  or  even  common  justice,  in  the  national  life. 
For  the  first  century  of  its  history  in  Ireland,  a 
Protestant  meant  an  Englishman  and  an  English- 
man meant  a  criminal.  It  may  be  retorted  that 
it  was  a  Protestant,  Bishop  Bedell,  who  translated 
the  Bible  into  Irish  in  the  days  of  the  first  Stuarts. 
That  brought  him  no  honour  from  his  own  Church, 
however.  Primate  Ussher,  afraid  to  offend  the 
authorities,  censured  him  for  attempting  to 
win  Ireland  to  what  he  believed  to  be  the  true 
faith  of  Christ  by  using  the  language  which  the 
Irish  people  understood.  Of  course,  intolerance 
in  religious  and  national  matters  was  a  common 
thing  in  these  parts  of  the  world  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  but  nowhere  more  than  in  Ireland  was 
Christ's  name  used  as  an  excuse  for  murder,  theft, 
and  every  sort  of  cruelty.  Protestantism  came 
to  Ireland  as  a  land-grabbing  invasion,  not  as  a 
gospel  of  glad  tidings. 

Its  spirit  must  have  been  seen  in  Christcharch 
on  that  day  in  1627  when  George  Downham, 
Protestant  Bishop  of  Derry,  preached  before  the 
Lord  Deputy  and  the  Council  on  the  subject  of 
the  "  graces  "  that  were  being  asked  from  King 


DUBLIN  273 

Charles  and  in  support  of  the  contention  of  twelve 
Bishops,  with  Ussher  at  their  head,  that  (in  a 
few  words)  the  toleration  of  Catholicism  was 
a  grievous  sin.  Having  read  out  the  decision  of 
the  Bishops,  we  are  told,  he  requested  the 
congregation  to  say  Amen,  and  "  suddenly  the 
whole  church  almost  shaked  with  the  great  sound 
their  loud  Amens  made."  The  Protestants  of 
those  days,  to  tell  the  truth,  were  anxious  neither 
to  tolerate  nor  to  convert  the  Irish  Catholic. 
They  preferred  that  he  should  remain  an  in- 
tolerable Catholic  in  order  that  they  might  have 
an  excuse  for  seizing  his  land.  They  wished  the 
Bible  to  be  an  excuse  for,  not  an  alternative  to, 
the  sword.  As  for  the  state  of  the  Irish  Protestant 
churches  in  those  critical  days,  I  need  only  quote 
the  testimony  of  that  unbending  Protestant  and 
Unionist  historian,  Mr.  Richard  Bagwell. 

"  One  parish  church  in  Dublin,"  he  writes  in 
Ireland  under  the  Stuarts,  "  was  the  Viceroy's 
stable,  a  second  a  nobleman's  residence,  and  a 
third  a  tennis-court  where  the  vicar  acted  as 
keeper.  The  vaults  under  Christchurch  were 
from  end  to  end  hired  to  Roman  Catholic 
publicans,  and  the  congregation  above  were 
poisoned  with  tobacco  smoke  and  with  the  fumes 
of  beer  and  wine."  The  communion  table  in 
the  middle  of  the  choir  was  "  made  an  ordinary 
seat  for  maids  and  apprentices."  It  will  be  said, 
perhaps,  that  other  churches  of  other  creeds 
x8 


274  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

were    as   lax.      But    that    does    not    affect    the 
point. 

Christchurch,  though  it  is  an  especially  historic 
place  for  English-speaking  Irish  Protestants  as 
being  the  first  churcJi  in  Ireland  where  the 
English  version  of  the  Bible  was  read  in  public  and 
left  open  for  all  to  read,  has  a  more  national 
interest  for  Irish  Christians  in  general,  as  the 
repository  of  the  casket  which  contains  the  heart  of 
St.  Lawrence  O'Toole,  the  statesmanlike  church- 
man who  is  perhaps  the  most  dignified  and  at- 
tractive figure  in  Ireland  at  the  time  of  Henry 
II. 's  invasion.  Lawrence  O'Toole,  the  first  Irish 
Bishop  to  be  consecrated  in  Dublin,  stood  for 
national  revival  in  the  Irish  Church.  Hitherto, 
the  Church  had  been  divided  owing  to  the  practice 
of  the  converted  Danes  of  sending  their  bishops 
to  be  ordained  at  Canterbury.  It  was  St. 
Lawrence,  by  his  sweet  and  diplomatic  spirit,  who 
finally  brought  the  two  branches  of  the  Church 
into  union  again  in  allegiance  to  Armagh.  He  is 
sometimes  criticised  by  later  politicians  for  having 
been  a  party  to  the  surrender  of  Ireland  to  Henry 
II.,  and  for  having  gone  to  Windsor  and  Normandy 
with  a  loyal  knee.  But,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  he 
was  an  unselfish  student  of  the  honour  of  his 
country  as  of  the  honour  of  his  Church  ;  and  his 
life — Mrs.  Green  describes  him  as  "  feeding  the 
poor  daily,  never  himself  tasting  meat,  rising  at 
midnight  to  pray  till  dawn,  and  ever  before  he 


DUBLIN  275 

slept  going  out  into  the  graveyard  to  pray  there 
for  the  dead  " — was  the  life  of  a  saint.  It  was 
St.  Lawrence,  the  last  of  the  saints,  who  in  this 
very  church  conducted  the  funeral  service  over 
Strongbow,  the  first  of  the  Normans. 

It  is  to  Christchurch  and  not  to  the  more 
popularly  known  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral — which 
is  only  a  step  away,  as  they  say — a  step  into  a 
slum — that  one  goes  in  search  of  the  rich  as- 
sociations of  history.  It  is  unfair,  perhaps,  to 
say  that  St.  Patrick's,  with  its  battlemented  walls 
and  its  blackened  tower,  stands  any  longer  in  a 
slum.  For  Lord  Iveagh,  a  patriotic  Irishman  in 
everything  except  his  politics,  has  displaced  many 
picturesque  hells  of  poverty  and  disease  in  the 
surrounding  parts  by  huge  barracks  of  inimitably 
ugly  brick — model  tenements  for  the  poor — 
which  are  no  doubt  much  pleasanter  to  live  in 
than  to  look  at.  Consequently,  as  one  comes  out 
of  the  church  on  Sunday,  one  no  longer  feels 
that  one  is  invading  a  subterranean  world  of 
narrow  streets  where — for  this  was  a  fine  ragged 
Sunday  market  only  a  few  years  ago — the  house- 
fronts  are  in  dingy  holiday  behind  their  curtains 
of  sleeves,  trouser-legs,  and  other  pieces  and 
patches  of  old  clothes.  The  poor  of  Ireland  have 
gathered  round  this  ancient  church, — which  has 
been  saved  from  ruin  by  stout  as  Christchurch 
Cathedral  was  saved  by  whisky, — but  they  do  not 
go  to  it.     They  wear  St.  Patrick's  flower  on  his 


276  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

holiday,  but  they  cannot  persuade  themselves 
that  he  was  really  a  Protestant,  or  that  they  ought 
to  become  Orangemen  for  his  sake.  He  is,  by 
the  way,  claimed  as  a  Catholic,  Episcopalian,  or 
Presbyterian,  according  to  the  prejudices  of  those 
who  write  about  him — in  other  words,  he  is  a 
genuinely  national  figure,  satisfying  all  creeds  and 
classes, 

St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  gets  its  name  from  the 
fact  that  it  is  built  on  a  spot^ — originally  an  island 
in  a  stream — where  the  saint  is  supposed  to  have 
called  a  holy  well  into  existence  in  order  to 
baptize  Alphin,  the  King  of  Dublin,  and  a 
multitude  of  other  converts.  Apart  from  this, 
St.  Patrick's  relations  with  Dublin  seem  to  have 
been  slight.  His  ghost  does  not  haunt  Dublin  as 
the  ghost  of  St.  Lawrence  O'Toole  does.  His 
dim  church,  indeed,  with  its  coloured  monuments 
and  its  moth-eaten  military  banners,  recalls  the 
fiercely  fretful  presence  of  Dean  Swift  far  more 
than  that  of  St.  Patrick  himself. 

Dean  Swift,  one  of  the  fathers  of  modern 
Irish  Nationalism,  and  by  far  the  most  dis- 
tinguished clergyman  who  ever  was  in  charge  of 
St.  Patrick's,  lies  here  beside  Stella,  his  simple  and 
at  the  same  time  mysterious  friend,  under  a  brass 
plate  a  little  to  the  right  of  the  porch  where  you 
enter.  It  is  a  common  thing  in  these  times  to 
defame  the  memory  of  Swift,  making  out  that 
he  was  merely  an  embittered  English  clergyman 


DUBLIN  277 

who  repaid  a  government  that  banished  him  to 
Dublin  by  rousing  the  Irish  mob  to  the  mood  of 
rebellion.  There  is  a  sort  of  party  politician  who 
always  finds  an  excuse  for  his  own  lack  of  generous 
idealism  by  proclaiming  that  the  leaders  of 
movements  for  political  righteousness  are  self- 
seekers,  humbugs,  and  sinners  in  the  various  other 
schools  of  iniquity.  Swift's  passionate  champion- 
ship of  the  cause  of  Ireland  was  no  doubt  the 
expression  of  a  mixed  nature.  Swift  was  ambitious, 
vain,  and  overbearing  as  well  as  sensitive  to  public 
injustice  and  the  sufferings  of  his  neighbours. 
His  politics,  however,  were,  in  the  last  analysis, 
the  politics  of  charity,  not  the  politics  of  hatred. 
So  charitable  was  he  by  nature,  we  are  told,  that, 
when  he  was  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  he  lived  on 
a  third  of  his  income,  gave  another  third  away, 
and  saved  the  remainder  to  leave  in  charity  at  his 
death.  "  With  the  first  five  hundred  pounds 
which  he  possessed,"  says  Sir  Leslie  Stephen, 
"  he  formed  a  fund  for  granting  loans  to  in- 
dustrious tradesmen  and  citizens,  to  be  repaid 
by  weekly  instalments.  It  was  said  that  by 
this  scheme  he  had  been  the  means  of  putting 
more  than  200  families  in  a  comfortable  way 
of  living.  He  had,  says  Delany,  a  whole 
*  seraglio  '  of  distressed  old  women  in  Dublin  ; 
there  was  scarcely  a  lane  in  the  whole  city 
where  he  had  not  such  a  '  mistress.'  He  saluted 
them  kindly,  bought  trifles  from  them,  and  gave 


278  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

them  such  titles  as  PuUagowna,  Stumpa-Nympha, 
and  so  forth." 

Naturally,  Dublin  adored  him,  though  Dublin 
Castle  did  not.  He  arose,  a  big-hearted  and 
fearless  leader  of  the  people,  when  a  leader  was 
most  needed  against  oppression  from  abroad. 
His  fight  against  the  importation  of  Wood's 
Halfpence  is  as  important  an  event  in  Irish  history 
as  was  the  men  of  Boston's  fight  against  the 
importation  of  some  objectionable  tea  in  the 
history  of  the  United  States.  It  does  not  matter, 
as  some  critics  of  Swift  seem  to  think,  whether 
Wood's  Halfpence  were  good  halfpence  or  not, 
any  more  than  it  matters  whether  the  tea  thrown 
into  Boston  Harbour  was  good  tea  or  not. 

The  point  was  that  Ireland  was  being  exploited 
by  a  foreign  government  which  had  sold  Wood  the 
right  to  dump  his  base  coin  in  the  country,  he 
having  paid  ^14,000  for  the  privilege,  and  another 
^3000  to  the  Duchess  of  Kendal,  the  King's 
mistress,  for  helping  him  to  secure  the  patent. 
It  was  against  this  indecent  incident  of  foreign 
rule — a  symbolic  incident — that  Swift  wrote  those 
lashing  political  tracts,  The  Drapier^s  Letters. 
"  If  his  copper  were  diamonds,"  he  wrote  of 
Wood,  "  and  this  kingdom  were  entirely  against 
it,  would  not  that  be  sufficient  to  reject  it  ?  " 
It  was  in  the  fourth  letter  that  he  made  his  famous 
enunciation  of  the  root-principle  of  Irish  freedom  : 
"  All  government   without   the  consent   of   the 


DUBLIN  279 

governed  is  the  very  definition  of  slavery."  "  By 
the  laws  of  God,  of  Nature,  of  nations,  and  of 
your  own  country,"  he  told  the  people  of  Ireland, 
"  you  are  and  ought  to  be  as  free  a  people  as 
your  brethren  in  England." 

By  the  people  of  Ireland,  of  course.  Swift 
meant  the  Protestants  of  Ireland,  but,  though 
his  ideal  was  a  Protestant  nation,  it  was  an  Irish 
Protestant  nation.  His  spirit  was  essentially  the 
spirit  of  a  Nationalist,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  verses 
he  wrote  on  the  sudden  drying  up  of  St.  Patrick's 
Well  in  1726.  In  these  verses  he  impersonates 
the  saint,  and  puts  into  his  mouth  a  renunciation 
of  a  people  who  would  not  struggle,  as  other 
nations  did,  for  their  liberty.  "  Oh  !  "  he  cries 
in  a  concluding  outburst  of  passion — • 

"  Oh  !    had  I  been  apostle  to  the  Swiss, 
Or  hardy  Scot,   or  any  land  but  this  ; 
Combined  in  arms,   they  had  their  foes  defied, 
And  kept  their  liberty,  or  bravely  died ; 
Thou  still  with  tyrants  in  succession  curst, 
The  last  invaders  trampling  on  the  first; 
Nor  fondly  hope  for  some  reverse  of  fate, 
Virtue  herself  would  now  return  too  late. 
Not  half  thy  course  of  misery  is  run, 
Thy  greatest  evils   yet  are  scarce  begun. 
Soon  shall  thy  sons   (the  time  is  just  at  hand) 
Be  all  made  captives  in  their  native  land ; 
When  for  the  use  of  no  Hibernian  born, 
Shall  rise  one  blade  of  grass,   one  ear  of  corn  ; 
When  shells  and  leather  shall  for  money  pass, 
Nor  thy  oppressing  lords  afford  thee  brass, 


28o  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

But  all  turn  leasers  to  that  mongrel  breed, 
Who,  from  thee  sprung,  yet  on  thy  vitals  feed ; 
Who  to  yon  ravenous  isle  thy  treasures  bear. 
And  waste  in  luxury  thy  harvest  there ; 
For  pride  and  ignorance  a  proverb  grown. 
The  jest  of  wits,  and  to  the  court  unknown. 
I  scorn  thy  spurious  and  degenerate  line, 
And  from  this  hour  my  patronage  resign." 

This  may  be  political  rhetoric  rather  than 
poetry,  but  at  least  it  is  eloquent  with  a  vehement 
Nationalism  which  was  as  sincere  as  any  belief 
that  any  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  ever  held.  Those 
people  who  speak  of  Swift's  Nationalism  as  though 
it  were  mere  crabbedness,  can,  I  am  sure,  never 
have  read  the  Irish  tracts  and  verses.  There  it 
appears  as  a  very  storm  of  righteousness  and  good 
sense.  It  was  only  an  accident  of  birth  that  made 
Swift  an  Irishman, — he  was  born  at  2  Hoey's 
Court,  not  far  from  the  Cathedral, — but  it  was  an 
accident  which  gave  Ireland  one  of  her  most 
Promethean  children.  Even  though  he  was,  as 
it  were,  a  fortuitous  and  often  an  unwilling 
Irishman,  he  was  the  greatest  Irishman  of  his 
time,  and  did  more  than  any  other  man  to  lay 
the  logical  foundations  of  Grattan's  Parliament. 

Dean  Swift  stands  for  the  realism  of  Irish 
politics.  For  the  romance  of  Irish  politics,  one 
turns  to  Lord  Edward  FitzGerald  and  Robert 
Emmet,  generous  messengers  of  the  French 
Revolution,  one  of  whom  died  on  the  scaffold 
and  the  other  fell  of  a  mortal  wound  not  far  from 


DUBLIN  281 

St.  Patrick's,  in  gloomy,  crooked  Thomas  Street. 
The  house  where  Lord  Edward  made  his  last 
stand,  a  victim  of  informers,  those  ever-sinister 
agents  of  the  will  to  misrule,  is  now  the  office  of 
some  kind  of  agricultural  society  ;  but  a  tablet 
on  the  wall  reminds  the  passer-by  that  in  1798 
it  was  a  place  of  events. 

Lord  Edward  is  one  of  the  gallant  men  rather 
than  the  great  men  of  Irish  history.  There  is  a 
picturesqueness  about  his  character,  as  well  as  a 
selflessness  in  his  devotion  to  Ireland,  that  has 
endeared  him  as  a  popular  hero.  A  melodrama 
about  his  rebellious  end  even  to-day  makes  the 
small  gallery  boys  in  their  greasy  caps  emit  loud 
whistles  and  interruptions  of  delight — except  in 
Belfast,  where  the  play  is  treated  as  a  party 
question.  I  have  sat  in  a  window  opposite  the 
Belfast  Opera-House  while  Lord  Edward  was 
being  played,  and  so  little  were  the  audience 
agreed  in  regard  to  the  sentiments  of  the  piece 
that  all  through  the  evening  you  could  hear  a 
continual  wild  rivalry  of  "  The  Boys  of  Wexford  " 
and  "  Rule  Britannia  "  being  sung  by  the  op- 
posing factions  in  the  theatre,  while  at  intervals 
a  number  of  excited  men  would  be  tumbled 
violently  out  of  one  of  the  doors,  cursing  and 
with  an  occasional  cracked  head. 

There  have  been  times,  indeed,  when  the 
heroes  of  patriotic  melodramas  have  had  to  die 
with  one  eye  open  in  the  Belfast  theatres,  for 


282  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

youthful  defenders  of  the  Union  have  on  occasion 
brought  an  ingenious  assortment  of  missiles  to 
hurl  at  the  impersonators  of  men  who  were  ignoble 
enough  to  give  their  lives  for  their  country. 
On  the  only  night  on  which  I  ever  saw  Lord 
Edzuard  myself,  the  disorder  was  the  disorder  of 
enthusiasm,  but  the  riots  of  1898  revived  the 
sporting  instincts  of  the  Shankhill  Road,  and  after 
that  for  a  time,  when  a  patriotic  play  came  to  the 
town,  the  theatre  was  a  scene  of  faction-fight.  .  .  . 
On  a  platform  made  of  boards  and  barrels 
in  the  middle  of  the  road,  nearly  opposite  St. 
Catherine's  Church,  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
house  in  which  Lord  Edward  was  captured,  Robert 
Emmet — "  the  darling  of  Ireland,"  as  the  song 
calls  him — was  hanged  like  a  dog  in  the  year  1803. 
"  This,"  proclaimed  the  hangman,  holding  up 
the  severed  head  to  the  gaze  of  the  multitude, 
"  is  the  head  of  a  traitor,  Robert  Emmet."  It  was 
a  lie.  Never  was  there  a  more  loyal  and  gentle 
redeemer  of  his  country  than  Robert  Emmet, 
whose  blood  dripped  on  the  road  that  day,  when 
brave  men  and  women  came  forward  and  dipped 
their  handkerchiefs  in  it  for  remembrance,  and 
the  dogs  gathered  to  lick  it  up.  He  was  only 
twenty-five  when  he  died  ;  and  his  slight  and 
boyish  figure  has  ever  since  been  beautiful  in  the 
popular  imagination  with  the  golden  lights  of 
youth  and  martyrdom.  Not  that  his  fame  has 
lived    without    question.     "  Never,"    exclaimed 


DUBLIN  283 

O'Connell,  the  shocked  politician,  "  was  there  a 
more  rash  or  foolish  enthusiast."  But  we  know 
how  the  formulae  of  rashness  and  folly  are  aways 
applied  to  the  hero  who  fails.  That  Emmet  was 
far  from  rash  or  foolish  is  shown  by  the  fact  that, 
in  spite  of  that  genius  for  spying  which  has  been 
always  among  the  glories  of  Dublin  Castle — the 
Lord  Lieutenant  had  an  allowance  of  £6000 
a  year  for  secret  service  money — the  Government 
could  learn  in  advance  nothing  of  his  plans  for 
seizing  their  citadel.  The  attempt  on  the 
castle  failed,  as  all  the  world  knows,  but  the 
important  thing  is  that  it  was  made  and  that 
Robert  Emmet  died  for  it.  His  speech  from  the 
dock,  with  its  strange,  youthful  rhetoric  that 
seems  to  belong  to  another  world  than  ours, 
must  surely  always  have  a  place  among  the  fine 
things  that  rebels  have  said  at  the  mouth  of 
death.  Never  has  any  speech  won  its  way  into 
the  Irish  imagination  like  this  which  ends  in  that 
solemn  music — 

"  I  am  going  to  my  cold  and  silent  grave — my  lamp  of  life 
is  nearly  extinguished — I  have  parted  with  everything  that  was 
dear  to  me  in  this  life,  and  for  my  country's  cause  with  the 
idol  of  my  soul,  the  object  of  my  aiFections.  My  race  is  run — 
the  grave  opens  to  receive  me,  and  I  sink  into  its  bosom.  I 
have  but  one  request  to  ask.  at  my  departure  from  this  world,  it 
is  the  charity  of  its  silence.  Let  no  man  write  my  epitaph  ; 
for  as  no  man  who  knows  my  motives  dare  now  vindicate  them, 
let  not  prejudice  or  ignorance  asperse  them.  Let  them  rest  in 
obscurity  and  peace,  my  memory  be  left  in  oblivion,  and  my 


284  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

tomb  remain  uninscribed,  until  other  times  and  other  men  can 
do  justice  to  my  character.  When  my  country  takes  her  place 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  then,  and  not  till  then,  let  my 
epitaph  be  written.     I  have  done." 

There  are  few  better  farewells  than  that  in  the 
literature  of  the  dock — which,  by  the  way,  is 
exceedingly  good  literature  from  Socrates  on- 
wards. Its  beauty  is  intensified  for  those  who 
know  how  easily  Emmet  might  have  escaped 
his  tragedy  had  he  been  willing  to  go  away  after 
the  defeat  of  his  rising  without  saying  good-bye 
to  Sarah  Curran.  The  circumstances  of  his 
sacrifice  have  a  fascination  that  makes  not  the 
Nationalist  only  but  the  Orangeman  eager  to 
listen  to  his  story.  Tom  Moore,  who  was  his 
friend,  and  whose  verses  on  Emmet  and  Sarah 
Curran  are  known  to  thousands  who  have  never 
heard  Emmet's  name,  has  left  it  on  record  that 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  heard  the  praise  of  Emmet 
from  him  with  interest.  Lord  Norbury,  when 
he  was  condemning  him  to  be  hanged,  and 
denouncing  him  for  the  crime  of  having  associated 
with  "hostlers,  bakers,  butchers,  and  such  persons," 
had  assuredly  no  idea  that  he  was  face  to  face 
with  one  of  the  martyrs  of  history — a  man  whose 
death  would  do  more  for  Irish  nationality  than 
an  army  with  banners.  But  every  generous 
Irish  boy  who  reads  about  Robert  Emmet  to-day 
would  rather  be  he  than  the  emperor  of  the  world. 

The  revolutionary  figure  that  dominates  the 


DUBLIN  285 

atmosphere  of  Dublin  for  me,  however,  is  not 
Robert  Emmet,  but  Wolfe  Tone.  I  seldom  walk 
past  the  pillars  of  the  old  Parliament  House  on  a 
night  when  the  moon  is  up  without  an  image  of 
Wolfe  Tone  in  his  college  cap  and  gown  sauntering 
hy.  I  think  a  scene  out  of  a  play  is  responsible 
for  this  deception  of  the  imagination. 

Wolfe  Tone  is  to  my  mind  the  most  fascinating 
character  who  ever  studied  or  avoided  learning 
behind  the  unpretentious  walls  of  Trinity  College, 
and  this  is  no  small  claim,  for  many  of  the  world's 
geniuses,  including  Burke  and  Goldsmith,  have 
endured  professors  there.  Goldwin  Smith  found 
a  parallel  for  Tone  in  Hannibal.  "  Brave,  ad- 
venturous, sanguine,  fertile  in  resource,  buoyant 
under  misfortune,"  Tone,  he  wrote,  "  was  near 
being  as  fatal  an  enemy  to  England  as  Hannibal 
was  to  Rome."  And  Wellington  was  filled  with 
admiration  at  the  way  in  which  this  "  extra- 
ordinary man,"  the  son  of  a  Dublin  coachmaker, 
went  to  Paris  "  with  a  hundred  guineas  in  his 
pocket,  unknown  and  unrecommended  ...  in 
order  to  overturn  the  British  Government  in 
Ireland,"  and  all  but  succeeded. 

It  is,  however,  his  genius  as  a  man  not  less  than 
as  a  statesman  of  rebellion  that  gives  him  such 
a  place  in  men's  affections  to-day.  There  is  a 
Shakespearean  breadth  about  his  character  which 
attracts  thousands  who  are  insensitive  to  Emmet's 
almost    lyrical    appeal.     He    had    about    him    a 


286  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

touch  of  the  swashbuckler.  He  was  as  gay  and 
excessive  and  daring  as  any  soldier  of  fortune  who 
was  ever  set  down  as  a  typical  Irishman.  His 
journal — which  Mr.  Thomas  Seccombe,  in  The 
Age  of  Johnson,  assigns  a  place  in  literature — is 
one  of  the  most  spirited  autobiographies  in  the 
English  language. 

Respectable  persons  turn  aside  from  Tone  as  a 
heavy  drinker,  though  I  imagine  he  was  no  worse 
a  drinker  than  that  idol  of  the  respectable,  William 
Pitt.  Tone  himself  jotted  down  all  the  evidence 
of  his  insobriety  in  his  diary  in  a  playful-sad 
spirit  that  you  will  find  in  some  of  the  letters  of 
Charles  Lamb.  But,  grant  that  he  drank  ever 
so  much,  does  that  prevent  him  from  having  had 
virtues  as  well  ?  I  think  there  must  be  something 
wrong  with  the  soul  of  a  man  who  can  read  Wolfe 
Tone's  journal  and  still  go  on  levelling  petty 
accusations  at  him  as  though  these  were  the  whole 
story.  Tone  was  a  combination  of  gay  dog  and 
hero,  and  to  miss  the  hero  in  him  is  to  be  dull  to 
the  heroic  in  history. 

His  last  days  are  full  of  the  grand  play  of  heroism. 
When,  having  arrived  with  a  French  fleet  in 
Lough  Swilly  in  October  1798,  he  saw  his  hopes 
once  more  scattered  by  the  storms  and  an  English 
squadron  bearing  down  like  a  company  of  doom 
on  the  French  ships,  he  was  urged  by  the  French 
officers  to  escape  now  that  the  fight  had  become 
hopeless,  as  capture  would  mean  a  rebel's  death 


DUBLIN  287 

to  him,  while  they  would  be  safe  as  prisoners  of 
war.  Tone  refused  to  go.  "  Shall  it  be  said," 
he  asked  them,  "  that  I  fled  when  the  French 
were  fighting  the  battles  of  my  country  ?  " 
Like  the  hero  of  a  novel,  it  may  be  thought. 
And  indeed  Tone  was  always  something  like  the 
hero  of  a  novel. 

When  he  was  recognised  by  his  captors  on  the 
way  to  Dublin,  and  the  General  ordered  that  he 
should  be  put  into  irons  as  a  traitor,  Tone 
indignantly  tore  off  his  French  uniform  with  the 
cry  :  "  These  fetters  shall  never  degrade  the 
revered  insignia  of  the  free  nation  which  I  have 
served."  Then,  becoming  calm  again,  he  offered 
himself  to  the  irons.  "  For  the  cause  which  I 
have  embraced,"  he  assured  his  captor,  "  I  feel 
prouder  to  wear  these  chains  than  if  I  were 
decorated  with  the  star  and  garter  of  England." 

Before  the  court-martial  which  tried  him  in 
Dublin  he  refused  to  make  any  defence.  He 
deliberately  and  proudly  avowed  everything  of 
which  he  was  accused.  He  had  engaged  in  the 
service  of  the  French  Republic,  he  declared, 
"  with  a  view  to  save  and  liberate  my  own 
country." 

"  For  that  purpose  I  have  encountered  the  chances  of  war 
amongst  strangers  ;  for  that  purpose  I  have  repeatedly  braved 
the  terrors  of  the  ocean,  covered,  as  I  knew  it  to  be,  with  the 
triumphant  fleets  of  that  power  which  it  was  my  glory  and  my 
duty  to  oppose.     I  have  sacrificed  all  my  views  in  life  ;   I  have 


288  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

courted  poverty ;  I  have  left  a  beloved  wife  unprotected,  and 
children  whom  I  adored  fatherless.  After  such  sacrifices  in  a 
cause  which  I  have  always  conscientiously  considered  as  the 
cause  of  justice  and  freedom,  it  is  no  great  effort,  at  this  day,  to 
add  the  sacrifice  of  my  life." 

The  only  favour  that  he  asked  of  the  court  was 
that  he  might  be  given  the  death  of  a  soldier, 
as  the  French  allowed  in  the  case  of  rebel  emigres. 

"  I  ask,"  he  said,  "  that  the  court  shall  adjudge 
me  the  death  of  a  soldier,  and  let  me  be  shot  hj 
a  platoon  of  grenadiers.  I  request  this  indulgence 
rather  in  consideration  of  the  uniform  I  wear — 
the  uniform  of  a  Chef  de  Brigade  in  the  French 
army — than  from  any  personal  regard  to  myself." 

When  this  was  refused,  he  resolved  that  at  least 
his  enemies  should  not  have  the  pleasure  of 
hanging  him,  and  in  the  barracks  where  he  was 
imprisoned  he  cut  his  throat  with  a  penknife.  The 
doctor  who  was  hurried  in  to  attend  him  declared 
that,  as  he  had  missed  the  carotid  artery,  there 
was  hope  that  he  might  live — till  the  execution. 

*'  I  am  sorry,"  was  Tone's  comment,  "  I  have 
been  so  bad  an  anatomist." 

Lying  between  life  and  death,  he  was  one  day 
told  by  the  doctor  that  he  must  not  attempt  to 
move  or  speak,  as  it  would  mean  immediate  death. 

"  I  can  yet  find  words  to  thank  you,  sir,"  said 
Tone,  with  a  slight  movement ;  "  it  is  the  most 
welcome  news  you  give  me.  What  should  I 
wish    to  live   for  ? "    and,   falling    back   on    his 


DUBLIN  289 

pallet,  he  died.  Some  people  will  not  accept 
this  story,  but  believe  that  Tone  was  murdered  in 
prison.  But  Irish  history  is  a  sufficient  banquet  of 
horrors  without  that.  .  .  . 

There  are  a  hundred  other  names  that  one 
might  mention  of  the  great  men  of  Ireland  who 
have  been  hanged  or  imprisoned  in  Dublin  ;  but 
the  list  would  run  far  beyond  a  chapter.  I 
doubt  if  there  is  any  other  capital  in  the  world 
where  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  heroes  of  the  people 
have  been  at  one  time  or  another  branded  as 
criminals. 

Yonder,  not  very  far  from  Trinity  College, 
stands  the  statue  of  Smith  O'Brien — with  its 
recent  inscription  in  Irish  on  the  pedestal — and 
reminds  us  how  a  brave  Protestant  gentleman  was 
turned  by  the  horrors  of  the  Government-created 
Famine  of  the  forties  from  a  Liberal  into  a  rebeL 
He  was  not  an  efficient  rebel,  because  he  acted  as 
though  a  rebellion  could  be  carried  on  without 
bloodshed  or  any  of  the  incidents  of  war,  but 
it  is  a  poor  business  laughing  at  the  end  of  his 
brave  little  adventure  in  the  cabbage-garden  at 
Ballingarry. 

O'Connell,  who  gazes  from  an  elaboration  of 
bronze  down  the  street  which  is  sometimes 
called  after  him  but  is  still  officially  known  as 
Sackville  Street,  was  never  sentenced  to  death  as 
Smith  O'Brien  was,  but  none  the  less  he,  too, 
graduated  in  dock  and  prison.  He  has  been 
19 


290  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

blamed  for  not  rebelling  as  often  as  Smith  O'Brien 
has  been  blamed  for  rebelling.  Had  he  refused 
to  yield  to  Dublin  Castle,  it  is  held,  when  it 
proclaimed  the  great  meeting  at  Clontarf  in  1845, 
he  would  have  had  a  million  determined  men  at  his 
back  to  sweep  foreign  rule  out  of  the  country. 
O'Connell,  however,  shrank  from  such  an  orgy  of 
bloodshed  as  a  rising  would  have  involved  ;  and 
he  was  no  coward.  Unfortunately,  he  suffered 
from  eloquence.  He  said  melodramatic  things 
about  his  "  dead  body,"  and  the  Young  Irelanders 
who  were  really  prepared  to  see  their  dead  bodies 
made  the  foundations  of  a  free  Ireland  were  cast 
into  the  depths  of  gloom  when  they  found  that 
this  leader  of  the  people  had  only  been  playing 
the  orator.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  a  mistake 
to  underestimate  the  fascinating  combination  of 
hero,  bully,  and  jester,  which  we  know  as  Daniel 
O'Connell.  It  was  O'Connell  and  Fenianism 
between  them  that  raised  the  Irish  Catholic  from 
the  servitude  of  generations  and  revived  in  him 
the  spirit  of  a  free  man.  And  Parnell,  whose 
two-coated  statue  by  Saint-Gaudens  looks  towards 
O'Connell's  from  the  far  end  of  a  long  line  of 
similar  monuments,  finished  the  work — Parnell, 
another  criminal  by  the  grace  of  England. 

Parnell,  the  sphinx  of  Irish  politics,  was  perhaps 
the  most  effective  leader  the  Irish  people  have 
ever  known  off  the  field  of  battle.  He  was  a 
realist,  rather  than  an  idealist,  in  politics.     He 


DUBLIN  291 

took  the  material  he  found  to  his  hand,  whether 
it  was  the  machine  of  a  Parliamentary  party  or 
the  almost  religious  republicanism  of  the  Fenians, 
and  used  it  with  the  strategy  of  genius  to  wring 
from  England  the  end  he  desired  —  an  Irish 
National  Parliament. 

He  was  not  a  separatist,  but  wished  to  see 
Grattan's  Parliament  restored.  And,  when  he 
perceived  that  all  the  arguments  and  forces  at  his 
disposal  could  not  persuade  Mr.  Gladstone  to 
admit  the  rights  of  the  Irish  nation  except  in  a 
compromising  sort  of  way,  he  accepted  the  middle 
course  of  Home  Rule  rather  than  that  Ireland 
should  be  without  a  resident  legislature.  It  was 
a  perfectly  frank  and  open  compromise.  It  was 
the  compromise  of  a  man  who  believed  in  the 
excellence  of  liberty  in  whatever  form  it  came. 
He  has  no  place  among  the  prophets.  He  had  no 
vision  of  Utopias.  Like  Swift,  he  was  one  of 
those  who  were  inflamed  less  for  ideal  justice  than 
against  real  injustice.  Thus,  there  was  about 
him  more  of  the  avenging  spirit  than  of  the  con- 
ciliator. He  saw  the  evil  tree  of  landlordism  and 
the  evil  tree  of  foreign  rule  spreading  disastrous 
shadows  over  the  land.  He  decided  that  to  strike 
at  the  roots  of  these  monstrous  plants  was  the 
only  way  to  save  the  Irish  people  from  starvation 
of  body  and  soul.  If  the  English  Government 
would  not  interfere  with  him  in  his  work,  he 
would  do  it  like  a  gentleman.     If  the  English 


292  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Government  chose  otherwise,  however,  and  used 
the  old  gaoler's  weapons  against  him,  then,  rather 
than  see  the  work  remain  undone,  he  would  not 
lift  a  finger  to  prevent  the  less  gentlemanly- 
Captain  Moonlight  from  doing  it  after  the  manner 
of  his  kind.  .  .  . 

That  was  what  made  Parnell  the  most  hated 
and  terrible  figure  who  ever  stood  on  the  floor  of 
the  British  House  of  Commons.  He  believed,  like 
the  American  general,  that  war  is  hell — and  land 
war  no  less  than  any  other  war — and  with  that 
fierce  calmness  of  his  he  was  prepared  to  use  the 
hell  of  war  in  order  to  destroy  the  hell  of  slavery. 

O'Connell  Street  is  truly  a  very  Thames  of 
memories,  with  statues  rising  like  masts  from  its 
broad  bosom — so  broad  that  the  quick-eyed  men 
and  women  who  hurry  past  the  fronts  of  its  shops, 
hotels,  and  offices  seem  but  diminutive  specks  in 
comparison.  On  its  tide  are  borne  along  the 
memories  of  two  centuries  of  Ireland's  struggle 
against  her  chains.  From  the  Rotunda,  indeed, 
to  Dublin  Castle  (which  is  a  good  way  beyond  the 
end  of  O'Connell  Street,  not  far  from  the  Parlia- 
ment House)  there  is  not  an  inch  of  ground  which 
is  not  exciting  with  history. 

Of  Dublin  Castle  itself  I  know  nothing  save 
that  it  exists  in  a  sort  of  hiding  off  the  main  road, 
and  that  over  its  gate  a  statue  of  Justice  stands 
with  its  back  significantly  turned  on  the  city. 
Also  I  know  that  it  is  the  place  where  the  jobs 


DUBLIN  293 

come  from,  and  that,  ever  since  the  Normans 
entrenched  themselves  there,  it  has  been  a  grey 
distillery  of  poisons.  Thomas  Drummond,  who 
was  Under-Secretary  when  Queen  Victoria  came 
to  the  throne  of  England,  tried  to  make  it  other- 
wise, and  the  Irish  people  put  up  a  statue  to  him — 
the  only  time  this  compliment  has  been  paid  to  a 
British  official  in  Ireland.  But  even  a  dynasty  of 
Drummonds  could  have  done  nothing  good  with 
Dublin  Castle  except  abolish  it. 

The  Rotunda,  on  the  other  hand,  ugly  little 
pot-bellied  building  though  it  is,  has  been  the 
scene  of  many  a  glorious  and  fantastic  drama. 
Perhaps  the  most  gaily  theatrical  thing  in  its 
history  was  the  arrival  there  of  the  mad  Bishop  of 
Derry  at  the  Volunteer  Convention  in  November 
1783.  This  Bishop,  who  was  Earl  of  Bristol  and 
a  Hervey  of  England,  has  been  denounced  as  a 
blasphemer,  a  debauchee,  and  an  insane  egoist, 
and  by  the  various  other  titles  by  which  any 
democrat  who  is  less  than  a  saint  is  commonly 
assailed.  All  we  can  be  sure  of  in  regard  to  him  is 
that  he  distributed  church  livings  from  his  castle 
at  Downhill  mighty  honestly  for  a  bishop  of  that 
time,  that  he  was  liked  to  the  point  of  enthusiasm 
by  the  Catholics  and  Presbyterians  of  his  diocese, 
and  that  he  was  as  cheerfully  ready  for  bloodshed 
as  a  schoolboy  for  a  fight  with  snowballs. 

"  We  must  have  blood,  my  lord  ;  we  must  have 
blood,"  he   had    once  observed  to  Charlemont, 


294  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

the  trimmer  ;  and  he  was  ready  to  see  a  good  deal 
of  it  spattered  over  the  walls  and  pavements  of 
Dublin  in  order  to  make  the  new  Parliament — • 
Grattan's  Parliament,  which  had  won  its  in- 
dependence from  the  English  Parliament  a  year 
before — really  democratic.  It  is  unfortunate  for 
Ireland  that  this  mad  Englishman  did  not  get  at 
least  part  of  his  way.  It  was  unfortunate  for 
England,  too.  But  Grattan,  Charlemont,  and 
the  rest  were  so  intoxicated  with  the  sense  of 
having  achieved  the  freedom  of  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment that  they  felt  like  resting  on  their  oars. 

The  situation  is  full  of  irony  as  we  look  back 
on  it.  The  Volunteers — that  national  body  of 
sturdy  Protestants,  with  Belfast  as  their  capital — 
had  been  praised  to  the  skies  so  long  as  they  used 
the  quiet  threat  of  their  guns  to  make  the  Irish 
Parliament  a  free  Parliament.  They  now  began 
to  be  frowned  at  as  rabble  when  they — or  the 
most  determined  spirits  among  them — looked 
like  using  those  same  guns  to  make  the  Irish  people 
a  free  people.  For  a  moment  it  was  doubtful 
whether  the  revolutionists  or  the  Whigs  among 
them  would  win.  "  Open  thou  our  mouths,  O 
Lord,  and  our  lips  shall  show  forth  thy  praise," 
was  the  inscription  which  hung  across  the  mouths 
of  the  cannon  of  the  Dublin  Volunteer  Artillery  as 
they  rattled  along  O'Connell  Street  on  the  day  of 
the  Convention,  with  Napper  Tandy  in  command. 
This  was  the  humour  of  the  best  of  them.     It 


DUBLIN  295 

was  as  the  chief  and  regal  impersonation  of  this 
sentiment  that  the  Bishop  made  his  memorable 
appearance  in  the  procession  that  day. 

What  a  picture  he  made  as  he  swept  into 
the  city  may  best  be  gathered  from  the  descrip- 
tion of  Froude.  "  The  Bishop,"  Froude  writes, 
"  entered  Dublin  with  the  state  and  manner  of  a 
monarch,  as  if  he  expected  to  be  chosen  King  of 
Ireland.  He  sat  in  an  open  landau,  drawn  by  six 
horses,  magnificently  apparelled  in  purple,  with 
white  gloves,  gold-fringed,  andgold  tassels  dangling 
from  them,  and  buckles  of  diamonds  on  knee  and 
shoe.  His  own  mounted  servants  in  gorgeous 
liveries  attended  on  either  side  of  his  carriage." 

It  has  been  hinted  that  the  Bishop  did  really 
fancy  himself,  as  the  saying  is,  as  King  of  Ireland, 
and,  if  he  had  ever  achieved  the  position,  there  is 
no  doubt,  judging  from  his  record  as  a  Bishop,  that 
he  would  have  been  one  of  the  most  practical  and 
beneficent  monarchs  of  his  time.  He  did  more 
than  any  other  man  to  try  to  save  Ireland  for 
democracy  in  1783.  If  he  had  succeeded,  there 
would  have  been  no  rebellion  in  1798,  and,  if 
there  had  been  no  rebellion  in  1798,  there 
would  have  been  no  Union  in  1800.  Instead 
of  accepting  democracy,  however,  the  politicians 
disbanded  the  Volunteers.  Thus  ended  the 
Nationalist  career  of  one  of  the  most  fantastic 
Englishmen  who  ever  went  to  Ireland — a  unique 
member  of  a  unique  family,  for  did  not  Chester- 


296  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

field  once  say  that  God  had  created  men,  women, 
and  Herveys  ? 

It  is  suggestive  of  the  way  in  which  Irishmen 
of  all  creeds  rally  to  any  tolerant  leader  who  works 
for  the  general  good  that,  when  a  monument  was 
put  up  to  the  Bishop  after  his  death,  both  the 
Catholic  bishop  and  the  Presbyterian  minister 
of  Derry  were  among  the  contributors.  .  .  . 

Of  the  ten  thousand  other  incidents  steeped 
in  colour  and  drama  of  which  Dublin  has  been 
the  scene,  I  like  to  remember  three  in  especial  as  I 
walk  its  streets.  The  first  is  the  visit  of  Art 
MacMurrough  and  the  three  other  Irish  kings  to 
Richard  11.  at  the  palace  the  latter  had  built  for 
himself  in  College  Green — then  called  Hoggin 
Green  from  the  little  hog-backed  hills  that  sur- 
rounded it  and  are  now  smoothed  into  clamorous 
streets. 

Richard  had  come  to  Ireland  with  by  far  the 
largest  army  that  had  ever  landed  on  its  shores, 
but,  even  so,  he  achieved  no  victory  that  was 
not  writ  in  water.  Froissart  quotes  Richard's 
English  chief  assistant  in  looking  after  his  new 
liege-men  to  the  effect  that  the  four  kings  sub- 
mitted "  more  through  love  and  good-humour 
than  by  battle  or  force." 

The  reception  of  the  four  kings  at  Hoggin 
Green  is,  therefore,  interesting,  not  as  a  passage 
in  the  history  of  Irish  subjection,  but  because  it 
throws  into  vivid  contrast  certain  features  in  the 


DUBLIN  297 

civilisations  of  the  Irish  and  the  invaders.  The 
gentleman-butler  who  was  told  off  to  attend  upon 
the  guests  in  the  "  very  handsome  house  "  assigned 
to  them,  and  who  described  the  whole  business  to 
Froissart,  looked  on  the  kings,  of  course,  as  a 
perplexing  sort  of  savages.  "  When  these  kings 
were  seated  at  table,"  he  related,  as  a  shocking 
example  of  their  barbarous  manners,  "  and  the 
first  dish  was  served,  they  would  make  their 
minstrels  and  principal  servants  sit  beside  them, 
eat  from  their  plates,  and  drink  from  their  cups. 
They  told  me  this  was  a  praiseworthy  custom  in 
their  country,  where  everything  was  in  common 
but  their  bed." 

Nowadays,  this  Irish  civilisation  of  equality  and 
culture  seems  to  the  majority  of  intelligent  people 
a  far  from  inferior  alternative  to  the  feudal 
civilisation  of  inequality  and  militarism.  But 
those  who  have  sought  to  justify  the  presence  of 
England  in  Ireland  have  always  done  so  only 
by  assuming  that  because  Ireland  was  different 
from  England,  it  was  therefore  uncivilised,  even 
criminally  so.  John  Stuart  Mill  saw  that  there 
were  not  any  other  two  civilisations  in  Europe 
which  differed  more  than  the  civilisations  of 
England  and  Ireland.  But  he  saw  in  this  a  reason, 
not  for  the  domination  of  one  over  the  other,  but 
for  leaving  each  to  work  out  its  salvation  along 
its  own  lines. 

In  connection  with  the  visit  of  the  four  kings, 


298  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

an  interesting  difference  between  Irish  and 
foreign  chivalryis  alsoworth  mentioning.  Richard 
wished  to  make  the  four  kings  knights,  and  his 
intermediary  was  profoundly  astonished  when  he 
was  told  that  they  were  knights  already,  and  that 
in  Ireland  a  king's  son  was  made  a  knight  and 
trained  in  the  elements  of  chivalry  at  the  age  of 
seven.  The  kings  were  induced,  however,  out  of 
deference  to  their  host  to  allow  themselves  to 
be  re-knighted.  It  was  in  Christchurch  Cathedral 
that,  on  the  eve  of  the  ceremony,  they  kept  their 
all-night  vigil. 

This  was  on  the  occasion  of  Richard's  first 
visit  to  Dublin.  His  second  expedition  cost  him 
his  crown.  While  he  was  feasting  in  Dublin,  a 
rival  had  arisen  in  England  and  made  himself 
King  Henry  iv.  .  .  . 

The  second  of  the  three  scenes  I  spoke  of  took 
place  not  many  yards  away  from  the  feast  of  the 
four  kings.  This  was  the  coming  of  Grattan  from 
his  sick-bed  to  plead  with  the  Irish  Parliament 
to  stand  firm  against  the  Union  which  Pitt,  with 
a  mixture  of  force,  fraud,  and  corruption,  was 
trying  to  carry  through,  and  to  preserve  that 
independence  which  had  already  done  miracles  for 
the  advancement  of  Ireland.  Grattan,  white  and 
worn  with  illness  and  a  long  journey,  has  been 
accused  of  theatricality  in  the  business  of  this 
scene.  His  tottering  entrance,  his  request  to  the 
Speaker  to  be  allowed  to  address  the  House  from 


DUBLIN  299 

his  seat,  have  been  disparaged  as  tricks  to  put 
posterity  into  the  melting  mood.  For  myself,  I 
could  as  soon  doubt  that  Hamlet  was  sad  as  that 
the  pillared  eloquence  of  that  great  farewell  of 
Grattan's  in  the  last  of  his  speeches  was  sincere. 
Every  one  knows  its  prophetic  close — 

"  Yet  I  do  not  give  up  my  country.  I  see  her  in  a  swoon, 
but  she  is  not  dead.  Though  in  her  tomb  she  lies  helpless  and 
motionless,  there  is  on  her  lips  a  spirit  of  life,  and  on  her  cheek, 
a  glow  of  beauty. 

*  Thou  art  not  conquered  :    beauty's  ensign  yet 
Is  crimson  in  thy  lips  and  in  thy  cheeks  ; 
And  death's  pale  flag  is  not  advanced  there.' 

"  While  a  plank  of  the  vessel  holds  together  I  will  not  leave 
her.  Let  the  courtier  present  his  loyal  sail  to  the  breeze,  and 
carry  the  barque  of  his  faith  with  every  wind  that  blows ;  I 
will  remain  anchored  here ;  with  fidelity  to  the  fortunes  of  my 
country,  faithful  to  her  freedom,  faithful  to  her  fall." 

In  those  sentences  Grattan  foretold  the  coming 
of  a  new  Irish  Parliament.  He  afterwards  moved, 
a  ghost  of  his  old  self,  about  the  lobbies  of  the 
English  House  of  Commons,  and  his  body  lies 
abroad  in  Westminster  Abbey.  But  the  Grattan 
whom  the  world  remembers  is  the  Grattan  of 
Grattan's  Parliament — the  Grattan  of  Ireland. 

The  third  of  the  coloured  events  took  place 
in  Green  Street  Court-house — the  court-house  in 
which,  at  near  ten  o'clock  at  night,  Robert  Emmet 
had  been  condemned  to  the  death  of  a  traitor. 


300  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

John  Mitchel,  perhaps  the  greatest  Irish  prose- 
writer  of  last  century — -a  good,  strong-jawed 
traitor  from  Ulster — stood  more  than  forty  years 
later  in  the  same  dock  on  a  comparable  charge, 
and  was  defended,  it  is  interesting  to  remember, 
by  Emmet's  brother-in-law,  Robert  Holmes. 
Mitchel  was  openly  and  frankly  a  revolutionist. 
"Above  all,"  he  had  exhorted  his  countrymen 
in  the  columns  of  The  United  Irishman,  "  let 
the  man  among  you  who  has  no  gun  sell  his 
garment  and  buy  one."  I  do  not  think  that 
Mitchel  was  a  great  revolutionary  leader.  But 
he  was  more  than  that  :  he  was  a  great  soul.  He 
planned  an  insurrection,  but  he  was  so  much  in 
love  with  the  impossible  that  he  planned  it,  not 
in  the  secrecy  of  conspiratorial  meetings,  but  in 
the  columns  of  a  weekly  paper.  The  horrors  of 
the  Famine,  however — when  the  country  stank 
with  discoloured  corpses,  when,  in  Mitchel's 
words,  "  maniac  mothers  stowed  away  their  dead 
children  to  be  devoured  at  midnight,"  when 
starving  creatures  were  transported  for  seven 
years  for  stealing  a  few  turnips  and  parsnips — did 
not  create  an  atmosphere  conducive  to  the  patient 
sort  of  conspiracies.  None  the  less,  even  those  of 
us  who  believe  that  Gavan  Duffy  showed  more 
political  wisdom  than  Mitchel  in  those  critical 
days  cannot  deny  our  enthusiastic  reverence  to 
that  caged  lion  of  genius  who  attempted  to  roar 
Ireland  into  revolution  when  she  was  nearer  the 


DUBLIN  301 

feebleness  of  death  than  she  has  ever  been  within 
the  memory  of  man.  Never  did  the  intense 
passion  of  Mitchel  burn  more  fiercely  than  in  the 
last  scene  in  the  Green  Street  dock,  as  he  doubled 
his  treason  by  calling  on  his  countrymen  to 
imitate  it.     "  I  do  not,"  he  proclaimed — 

"I  do  not  repent  anything  that  I  have  done,  and  I  believe 
the  course  which  I  have  opened  is  only  commenced.  The 
Roman  who  saw  his  hand  burning  to  ashes  before  the  tyrant, 
promised  that  three  hundred  should  follow  out  his  enterprise. 
Can  I  not  promise  for  one,  for  two,  for  three,  ay,  for 
hundreds  ? " 

We  are  told  that  immediately  passionate  voices 
from  all  parts  of  the  court  responded  to  him  : 
"  For  me  !  for  me  !  promise  for  me,  Mitchel ! 
and  for  me  !  "  The  friends  who  stood  near  him 
reached  over  the  dock  to  clasp  him  by  the  hand. 
And  though  Dublin  did  not  rise  to  rescue  him  as 
he  had  expected,  and  brought  down  upon  itself 
his  scornful  denunciation  as  a  city  of  bellowing 
slaves  and  genteel  dastards,  John  Martin  and  the 
others  who  gave  their  promises  that  day  kept  them 
very  well. 

If  one  goes  to  Dublin  to-day,  one  finds  that  the 
living  influence  out  of  the  past  is  not  John  Mitchel, 
but  his  far  more  constructive  and  conciliatory 
contemporary,  Thomas  Davis.  There  is  a  statue 
to  Davis  in  the  Mount  Jerome  Cemetery  at 
Harold's   Cross — not  far  from  the  place  where 


302  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Robert  Emmet  was  captured — but  I  could  not 
find  his  grave,  though  I  have  twice  looked  for  it 
and  asked  the  gardeners  of  the  tombs  whereabouts 
it  lay.  His  statue  looks  out  over  that  field  of 
graves  amid  which  the  misty  stones  rise  with  their 
genteel  and  Protestant  memories,  and  to  any 
Nationalist  it  must  seem  as  though  this  missionary 
of  kindness  in  politics  were  claiming  his  brother- 
dead  for  the  sweet  and  reasonable  kingdom  of  the 
love  of  Ireland.  He  is  the  symbolic  figure  of 
constructive  Nationalism,  the  Nationalism  of  love, 
as  Mitchel  is  the  symbolic  figure  of  destructive 
Nationalism,  the  Nationalism  of  hate.  He  was 
the  first  of  the  nation-builders.  That  is  why 
to  the  Gaelic  League  and  other  movements 
which  aim  at  uniting  men  of  all  churches  and 
politics  he  is  something  like  a  patron  saint.  There 
are  few  country  gatherings  of  Gaelic  Leaguers 
where  somebody  does  not  quote  a  verse  of  his 
propagandist  poetry — especially  his  appeal  for 
the  national  brotherhood  of  all  creeds : — 

"What  matter  that  at  different  shrines 

We  pray  unto  one  God — 
What  matter  that  at  different  times 

Your  fathers  won  the  sod — 
In  fortune  and  in  name  we're  bound 

By  stronger  links  than  steel ; 
And  neither  can  be  safe  nor  sound 

But  in  the  other's  weal." 

Obviously,  it  would  be  foolish  to  argue  that  this 


DUBLIN  303 

is  poetry.  It  is,  however,  very  effective  and  very- 
noble  political  journalism. 

But  you  will  never  see  a  crowd  round  the 
Thomas  Davis  statue  in  the  Mount  Jerome 
Cemetery.  Hither  no  tourists  are  jarvied  as  to 
one  of  the  exciting  places  of  Ireland.  Not  that 
the  people  do  not  love  a  cemetery  in  Dublin 
as  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  The  Glasnevin 
Cemetery  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  city,  with 
its  thronging  and  chimneyed  monuments,  marking 
the  graves  of  so  many  of  the  great  men  of  Ireland 
— the  grave  of  O'Connell  boastfully,  and  the 
grave  of  Parnell  quietly,  like  a  haunt  of  peace — 
is  a  crowded  resort.  Not  long  ago  I  was  there 
on  a  Sunday  afternoon  to  see  the  monument  to 
John  O'Leary,  the  most  picturesque  of  Fenians, 
being  unveiled.  The  occasion  was  especially  in- 
teresting because  the  authorities  of  the  cemetery 
at  first  refused  to  allow  the  descriptive  words, 
"  the  Fenian  leader,"  to  appear  on  the  monument. 
Not  that  the  words  were  not  the  exact  truth, 
but  that  the  Fenians — who  suffered  badly  at  the 
hands  of  priests  and  bishops — ought  not  to  be 
allowed  to  obtrude  their  revolutionary  title 
among  respectable  tombs.  However,  public 
opinion  and  common  sense  won  in  the  end,  and 
the  monument  is  allowed  to  speak  the  truth. 

Sunday  appears  to  be  the  great  popular  day  in 
Glasnevin.  But,  of  course,  the  multitudinous 
holiday-ground  of  Dublin  is  not  the  cemetery,  but 


304  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

Phoenix  Park.  Phoenix  Park,  with  its  lawns  and 
woods  and  meadows,  is  one  of  the  rich  gifts  of 
Dublin  to  the  stranger,  though  the  stranger  as 
a  rule  drives  out  to  it,  not  to  possess  himself  of 
its  riches,  but  to  be  shown  the  exact  spot  where 
a  political  murder  was  committed  some  thirty 
years  ago.  The  "  exact  spot "  appears  to  be 
preserved  in  the  public  memory  by  some  bene- 
factor of  the  car-drivers,  who  keeps  a  mark  scraped 
at  the  side  of  the  walk  where  Mr.  Burke  and  Lord 
Frederick  Cavendish  met  their  end.  This  little 
scratch  of  earth,  with  the  Viceregal  Lodge 
peeping  out  towards  it  through  a  lawn  of  trees, 
is  probably  the  most  gazed-at  thing  in  Dublin — 
at  least  so  far  as  visitors  are  concerned.  And 
indeed  the  Phoenix  Park  murders  have  filled  an 
extraordinarily  disproportionate  place  in  a  good 
deal  of  political  thought — or,  rather,  talk — about 
Ireland.  It  became  an  obsession  with  some 
Unionists  that  they  were  a  representative  Irish 
deed,  and  I  have  heard  a  Scottish  Presbyterian 
clergyman  in  my  father's  house  declaring  that 
he  would  not  set  foot  in  Ireland  an  inch  outside 
the  province  of  Ulster — "  Parnell's  country,"  he 
called  the  barbarous  ogre-ridden  wilderness  beyond 
the  border.  I  remember,  too,  when  I  was  a  child 
on  my  first  visit  to  Dublin,  how  I  expected  to  find 
murderers  among  the  fauna  of  the  Park  when  I 
was  taken  out  there  to  see  the  beasts  in  the 
Zoological  Gardens. 


DUBLIN  305 

The  truth  is,  the  imagination  of  the  world  has 
been  filled  ever  since  Elizabeth's  day  with  the 
defamations  of  Ireland,  and  it  is  only  at  the 
present  time  that  ordinary  people  in  many  places 
are  beginning  to  realise  that  Ireland  is  inhabited 
by  human  beings  and  not  by  comic  criminals 
with  a  taste  for  melancholy  songs.  When  one 
remembers  this,  one  cannot  but  honour  the 
nobleness  of  Lady  Frederick  Cavendish,  whose 
husband  was  one  of  the  victims  of  the  Phoenix 
Park  tragedy,  and  who  none  the  less  never 
wavered  in  her  belief  in  the  Irish  people  and  in 
their  right  to  be  free  in  their  own  land.  .  .  . 

But  there  is  no  use  in  trying  to  sum  up  the 
interest  and  meaning  of  Dublin  in  a  chapter. 
To  write  about  Dublin  is  to  write  about  Ire- 
land :  it  is  to  write  about  the  Gaelic  League 
and  the  Abbey  Theatre,  and  A.  E.  and  Sir 
Horace  Plunkett,  and  Sinn  Fein  and  Parnell  and 
the  Fenians  and  Young  Ireland,  and  Emmet 
and  Ninety-Eight  and  Grattan's  Parliament, 
and  Swift  and  William  of  Orange  and  James  11. 
(who,  good  Englishman  that  he  was,  was  not 
at  all  pleased  when  the  Irish  Parliament  that 
was  loyal  to  him  declared  itself  independent 
of  the  English  Parliament  that  was  rebelling 
against  him),  and  Cromwell  and  Strafford,  and 
Red  Hugh  O'Donnell  and  Elizabeth's  land-pirates 
(who  were  as  cruel  and  as  daring  as  any  pirates  of 
the  sea),  and  Trinity  CoUege  (which  was  meant  to 
20 


3o6  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

make  the  Irish  Protestant,  but  may  be  destined  to 
make  the  Protestants  Irish),  and  Silken  Thomas 
(who  put  his  guns  on  Howth  Head  against  the 
invaders),  and  Lambert  Simnel  (who  was  crowned 
King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  in  Christchurch 
Cathedral),  and  Art  MacMurrough  (who  levied 
tribute  on  the  English  Government),  and  Edward 
Bruce  (who  came  from  Scotland  and  laid  the 
Englishry  of  Ireland  waste,  and  encamped  with  his 
brother  Robert  where  Phoenix  Park  is,  and,  crowned 
with  the  crown  of  Ireland,  was  defeated  at  last 
hy  famine),  and  Black  Monday  (when  the  O'Byrnes 
and  the  O'Tooles  swept  down  from  the  hills 
upon  the  Bristol  folk  holding  Dublin  for  King 
John,  and  most  bloodily  spoilt  a  public  holiday  at 
Cullenswood  in  Rathmines),  and  Dermot  of  the 
Foreigners  (who  let  in  the  Normans,  a  savage 
man  who  mutilated  a  dead  enemy's  face  with  his 
teeth  on  the  field  of  battle),  and  Brian  of  the 
Tributes  (age-worn  conqueror  of  the  Danes,  who 
saw  the  great  battle  of  Clontarf  as  it  were  a  host 
of  men  felling  the  trees  of  a  wood),  and  a  thousand 
years  and  more  before  that  again  when  the 
bright  children  of  the  hills  were  doing  those 
things  which  have  been  the  matter  of  the  heroic 
legends  and  the  folk-tales  ever  since. 

- 1  have  already  said  in  this  chapter  that  St. 
Patrick  had  very  little  to  do  with  Dublin,  but  it 
was  in  Dublin — Baile  Athe  Cliath,  the  Town  of 
the  Ford  of  Hurdles,  as  the  Irish  have  always 


DUBLIN  307 

called  it  in  memory  of  an  exciting  incident  which 
you  may  read  of  in  the  story  of  the  Vengeance  of 
Mesgedra — that  St.  Patrick  was  brought  face  to 
face  with  Oisin,  the  last  of  the  pagans,  when 
Oisin  wearied  of  the  Paradise  of  the  Gael,  which 
we  know  as  the  Land  of  the  Young,  and  revisited 
the  glimpses  of  the  moon  that  shines  over  Ireland. 
It  was  in  the  fifth  century  that  Patrick  came 
to  Ireland,  while  it  was  in  the  third  century  that 
Oisin  and  the  Fenian  warriors  had  lived  and 
died.  The  story  of  the  return  of  Oisin,  tall  and 
beautiful  and  strong  as  men  no  longer  were  on 
earth,  into  a  Christian  world  in  which  Finn 
MacCool  and  Oscar  and  the  rest  were  mere  husks 
of  names,  is  one  of  the  most  appealing  of  the 
Irish  legends.  Here,  as  it  were,  in  the  many 
imaginative  dialogues  which  record  the  con- 
versations between  the  saint  and  the  returned 
hero,  the  golden  youth  of  Paganism  fights  a 
running  duel  with  the  grave  and  terrible  sanctity 
of  the  Christians.  "  Oisin,"  says  Patrick  in  one 
of  these  dialogues,  "  unless  you  let  me  baptize 
you,  you  will  go  to  hell  where  the  rest  of  the 
Fenians  are."  "  If,"  retorts  Oisin  in  scorn, 
"  Dermot  and  Goll  and  Finn  were  to  go  to  hell, 
they  would  bring  the  devil  and  his  forge  up  out 
of  it  on  their  back."  And,  when  he  hears  from 
St.  Patrick  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  hell  had 
been  condemned  because  of  the  eating  of  a  single 
apple,  he  bursts  out,  with  pagan  common  sense, 


3o8  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

"  If  I  had  known  that  your  God  was  so  narrow- 
sighted  that  He  damned  all  those  people  for  one 
apple,  we  would  have  sent  three  horses  and  a  mule 
carrying  apples  to  God's  heaven  for  Him." 

Obviously  it  was  Oisin  of  the  battles  and  not 
Patrick  of  the  prayers  who  was  surrounded  with  a 
divine  light  in  the  hearts  of  the  tale-maker  who 
invented  this.  And,  indeed,  though  Oisin  in 
the  end  lets  himself  be  baptized,  the  poets  usually 
give  the  best  of  the  argument  to  him  and  not  to 
St.  Patrick.  Perhaps  it  is  because  the  natural 
man  resents  the  way  in  which  hell  is  opened 
to  receive  the  enormous  warriors  of  Finn.  Our 
sympathies  leap  out  to  Oisin  as,  mindful  of  those 
companies  of  warriors  who  had  once  been  the 
nonpareil  of  the  earth,  he  attempts  to  conceive 
this  new  and  potent  God. 

"  If  my  son  Oscar  and  God,"  he  cries  in  a  song 
translated  by  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde  in  The  Religious 
Songs  of  Connacht,  "  were  engaged  hand  to  hand 
on  the  Fenians'  Hill,  and  I  were  to  see  my  son  on 
the  ground,  I  would  say  that  God  was  a  strong 
man."  He  tells  Patrick,  too,  that  all  the  virtues 
which  the  clergy  say  are  commended  by  the  King 
of  the  Stars  were  in  the  Fenians  of  Finn  already. 
And  when  we  remember  that  among  the  maxims 
given  by  Finn  to  one  of  his  captains  was,  "  Two- 
thirds  of  thy  gentleness  be  shown  to  women  and  to 
little  children  that  creep  on  the  floor,  and  to  poets ; 
and  be  not  violent  to  the  common  people,"  we 


DUBLIN  309 

seem  to  be  on  the  entrance  steps  of  a  civilisation 
in  which  culture  and  gentleness  counted  for  not 
less  than  bravery  in  battle.  Legend  has  it  that 
it  was  by  St.  Patrick's  orders  that  the  stories  of 
Finn  and  his  companions  were  taken  down  from 
the  lips  of  this  ravenant  from  the  youth  of  the 
world — a  giant  world  in  which,  so  Oisin  assured 
his  hearers,  the  leg  of  a  lark  was  as  big  as  a  shoulder 
of  mutton  in  the  later  degenerate  time,  and  the 
berries  of  the  wild  ash  were  as  big  as  sheep,  and 
a  leaf  of  ivy  was  as  broad  as  a  knight's  shield.  .  .  . 
Alas !  Oisin  himself  was  but  a  withered  thing  and  a 
ghost  by  this  time,  for  he  had  broken  the  com- 
mand which  had  been  put  upon  him  in  the  Land 
of  the  Young  not  to  dismount  from  his  white 
horse  or  to  touch  the  earth  during  his  wanderings 
among  men.  He  was  at  Glanismole,  near  Dub- 
lin, one  day  when,  seeing  some  puny  moderns 
labouring  to  raise  a  huge  stone  on  to  a  cart,  he 
stooped  to  aid  them  in  pity  for  their  feebleness, 
and  suddenly  the  white  horse  flew  away  from  him 
in  a  mist,  and  the  golden-looming  immortal  of  an 
instant  before  was  struggling  up  from  the  ground, 
an  ancient,  skinny  man,  without  strength,  without 
beauty,  wrinkled  and  feeble  and  grey.  It  was 
this  ghostly  figure  that  St.  Patrick  had  brought  to 
him  where  Dublin  now  is,  and  with  whom  he  had 
so  many  talks  and  heated  words  about  the  old 
times.  .  .  . 

I  will  say  farewell  to  you  now,  Dublin  of  the 


3IO  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

bridges,  though  it  should  be  in  the  middle  of  a 
paragraph.  I  will  say  farewell  to  you,  but  not 
before  I  have  put  my  curse  upon  those  who  have 
called  you  dirty  and  have  not  noticed  except 
condescendingly  that  you  are  beautiful.  Perhaps 
you  are  dirty,  but  I  have  not  yet  found  any  city 
that  was  clean  enough  to  justify  boasting.  The 
Liffey  that  flows  through  you  in  that  ugly  stone 
tank — for  surely  those  deep  dungeony  walls  you 
gave  it  are  unnecessarily  joyless — is,  I  admit,  a 
test  of  faith,  and  that  baby-food  advertisement 
which  curves  in  letters  chosen  from  a  mean  and 
monstrous  alphabet  with  one  of  your  bridges  over 
the  sluggish  tide  is  something  that  a  finer  civili- 
sation would  make  as  impossible  as  an  auction 
from  a  cathedral  pulpit.  But  then  you  have  other 
waters  besides  the  Liffey,  and  other  bridges. 
You  are  in  a  girdle,  as  it  were,  of  canals  and 
streams,  and  from  every  grey  little  bridge  that 
rises  and  falls  over  them  there  is  a  prospect  of 
hills  that  mount  up  in  shining  green  terraces  to 
the  glens  of  Wicklow. 

There  is  surely  no  city  in  which  it  is  easier  to 
get  out  into  the  unlabouring  world  of  grass  and 
the  perpetual  Sabbath  of  the  cattle  than  Dublin. 
Even  those  residential  parks  on  the  skirts  of  the 
town,  that  have  fallen  into  disuse  and  cheapness, 
seem  to  house  the  silences  of  the  primeval  forest 
as  their  wild  loose-fingered  trees  murmur  in  the 
sun  in  their  kingdom  of  untended  grass.     Those 


DUBLIN  311 

huge  grey  walls,  too,  which  line  so  many  of  the 
long  dusty  roads,  and  make  one  feel  at  times  as 
though  one  were  walking  past  a  rich  man's  gaol, 
enable  one  soon  to  get  the  impression  of  a  desert 
solitude.  I  do  not  like  those  excessive  blind  walls 
myself.  They  are  forbidding  to  the  point  of 
being  inhuman.  If  they  do  not  imply  that  an 
ogre  lives  behind  them,  they  imply  that  they  may 
one  day  be  besieged  by  ogres.  They  are  monuments 
of  mistrust.  They  are  out  of  harmony  with  the 
enchanted  laughter  that  fills  the  Dublin  streets — 
the  laughter  that  ripples  in  rags  along  the  kennels 
of  the  Coombe,  and  indeed  wherever  two  or  three 
are  gathered  together  on  the  shores  of  Dublin 
Bay,  from  the  fairy  promontory  of  Howth,  a 
warrior's  headland,  to  Dalkey  of  the  seas  and  the 
Sunday  bands. 

This  reminds  me  that  I  read  lately  of  a  visitor 
who  found  Dublin  the  saddest  city  he  had  ever 
known.  The  Dublin  of  my  experience  is  different. 
Its  leisurely  crowds,  not  yet  slaves  to  the  tailor, 
and  its  knots  of  talkative  and  good-humoured 
persons  among  whom  the  great  policemen  move, 
seem  to  me  still  to  retain  some  of  the  old  vitality 
that  made  Dublin  famous  for  gaiety  and  wit. 
It  will  seem  a  sad  city  to  those  who  like  to  see  the 
streets  crowded  with  lorries  of  merchandise  and 
busy  with  the  rush  of  men  with  narrow  money- 
making  faces.  For  Dublin  is  no  city  of  quick 
fortunes  and  quick  lunches.     I  am  of  those  who 


312  RAMBLES  IN  IRELAND 

do  not  entirely  regret  this,  and  yet  I  know  very 
well  that  Dublin  to-day  is  only  leading  a  bath- 
chair  existence  compared  to  the  leaping  energy 
of  life  that  will  be  hers  when  she  is  a  capital  in 
liberties  and  duties  as  well  as  in  name.     When  the 

Irish  Parliament  is  reopened But  it  would 

require  another  book  to  tell  what  Dublin  will  be 
like  then. 


Printed  by  Morrison  &  Gibb  Limited,  Edinburgh 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031  01646079  2 


